Son Tay Raider Association
A-1
(Peach) Participation
On
the Saturday night of 20 November, 1970 a C-130 picked us up from Takhli
where we had been housed in the CIA compound since deploying from Eglin.
The NKP flight line was blacked out, even the tower people had been
relieved and was empty. The C-130
landed, without any lights on it or the runway and ramp, and taxied to the
ramp. It had
already
lowered the rear ramp and when it came to almost a stop ten of us ran out,
2 pilots for each of the five Fat faces we were taking. It then continued
on, pulling up the ramp, taxied out and took off. It had other people to
deliver to other locations.
The
only
people
out and about were the crew chiefs and us. Of course the Wing Commander
met us and followed me around like a puppy dog asking question after
question. None of which I could answer. He got rather pissed as I recall.
Picking up our flight gear we went straight to the birds, cranked up and
taxied out. No
taxi,
runway or aircraft lights were used and no radio either, total silence.
(The radio was
not to be
used till over the camp.)
Taking off at the exact second we did a 360 over the base to join up. A
C-130, Talon was to rendezvous with us there and lead us on. Timing was
everything. It wasn't there. We did two more 360's and couldn't wait any
longer. We were, by that time, about ten minutes behind schedule.
The backup
plan was to navigate ourselves to Son Tay, following the planned route and
arriving
at the appointed time, 0200 local Sunday, 21 November. No way Jose. We had
agreed
among ourselves earlier that that was not a viable plan. We would fly the
course
until we
got lost, which we knew we would, and then head straight for Hanoi. Hold
just
south of
the IP, which was the Black River straight west of the camp, and do our
thing at
the TOT.
(Time Over Target) The route was NKP, straight to Ventiane, straight north
out of there and then drop to low level and weave through the karst and
valleys all the rest of the way. Impossible at night for A-1's. A back up
rendezvous with the Talon was over Ventiane at the appointed minute but
because we had made an extra 360 over NKP waiting we were running late. We
had been unable to make up all the lost time, some of it but not all. We
hit Ventiane a few minutes late, maybe five, no Talon. We turned north and
pressed on.
After
Ventiane passed behind there were no lights, anywhere, ink black. And then
our
worst nightmare loomed up. A cloud bank. Being lead I wasn't worried about
being hit but the rest of the flight exploded like a covey of quail,
everyone in god only knows what
direction.
Pushing it up I climbed straight ahead and soon popped out on top. Not an
A-1
in sight and no hope of joining up again without lights or radio. We were
all on our own.
After a short time we noticed a speck of light far ahead. A star? After
watching it a while
we were
sure it was below the horizon and no Lao in his right mind would have a
light
on. Had
to be something else. Heading straight for it, it took some time to catch.
A fully
loaded
A-1 is no speed demon.
Sure enough, there was our Talon with a teeny-weeny white light on the top
of the
fuselage and a dim bluish glow coming from the open ramp in the rear.
Couldn't see the
bluish
glow until you were only few meters from it. There were already two A-1's
there,
one on
each wing. We moved up and the left one moved out and we took our place on
the
left wing
tip. A few minutes later the other two A-1's slowly pulled up and once we
were
all in
place the little white light went out, the bluish glow went out and the
Talon
descended
into the black. From there on it was hold on tight as it bobbed and weaved
through
the hills and valleys.
The Talon driver was top notch. His power applications during climbs and
descents and
gentle
banking allowed our heavy A-1 to hang right in there. The three day
"moon
window"
we had for this operation provided good night vis. With one exception.
Several
valleys
we drove through were so deep that mountains, karst, trees or whatever
eclipsed
the moon.
When that happened it was like diving into an inkwell. You could make out
only a
few feet of wing tip and that was only because of our own exhaust flame.
When
turns or
ups and downs occurred at those times it was tough.
As we emerged from the back country out over the Red River Valley it was
almost like
being
over Iowa farm country with Omaha/Council Bluffs up ahead. (Hanoi) Lights
everywhere.
Soon there after the Talon started climbing and we knew the IP was coming
up. We
had a controlled altitude over the IP. The choppers, with their Talon,
were going
to be
under us coming in from a different direction. They should have been
slightly ahead
of us but
one couldn't be sure everyone was on time. The control time was over the
camp
so IP
times were adjusted for the different speeds.
Then the Talon transmitted the code word. First of anything we heard on
the radio all night. I can't remember the word but it was to be picked up
by a high orbiting EC-135 over northern Laos and relayed back to wherever.
It meant we had crossed the IP. (We were two seconds off. The best anyone
had done during practice was ten minutes. Of course we didn't have Talons
for the practice.) The Talon then accelerated out and up like a shot and
disappeared in the night. The heading to the camp was 091 and trying to
reset our DG by a jiggly whiskey compass was an effort in futility. You
remember the high tech, latest hardware we had on board. Good thing all
the towns, cities and roads were lit up. With the target study we had done
it was like being in your own back yard.
Next number 5 pealed off to the right. He was backup in case anyone was
shot down and
was to
orbit a large hill just south of course until called in. As it turned out
the hill was an Army artillery practice range and it wasn't long before
they started taking a few rounds. They moved off to somewhere else,
probably closer to the camp, don't know where. Just another example of the
brilliant Intel we had.
Then
3 & 4 pealed off to the left to hold just short of the camp till
called in. The plan was to call them in when we had expended 50% of our
ordnance. Then they would do the
same with
us, each time expending 50% of what you had left. That way, if someone
went
down,
there would always be aircraft in the air that had some ordnance left for
support.
Then
2 dropped back so we could set up a two aircraft Daisy Chain around the
camp.
It
was like a precision ballet, a computer simulation would not have been
better timed.
Just
as I rolled into a bank along side the camp two flares popped right over
it, having
been
released from one of the Talons. At the same time Banana (HH-3 with Blue
Boy
assault
team aboard.) crashed landed inside the camp compound and the first Apple
(CH-53)
opened up with mini-guns on the watch towers and the guard quarters. The
towers either blew apart or caught fire as did the guard quarters. We
didn't want the big fire consuming the two story quarters, attracts
attention, but it was too late.
At that time we had nothing to do except to make sure no one approached
the camp. No
one did.
We could see the sparkles from a Fire Fight Simulator dropped by one of
the
Talons on
the other side of town as a distraction and soon a large explosion and
fire where another Talon dumped napalm on an infantry base armory a few
klicks to the South.
Then the shit hit the fan. Gear Box (The Command and Control team.)
started yelling about losing Axle. Axle was Col. (Bull) Simons personal
call sign. "We've lost Axle" he kept yelling. "God damn,
Simons has been killed, we're all in deep shit."
At this point I'd like to say that I think the Universe will collapse in
upon itself in the Big Crunch before the Army and Air Force will ever be
able to talk to each other on a
radio and
have each other understand what's going on. He wasn't lost like being dead
in
AF jargon, they just didn't know where he was, couldn't find him.
Then
the radio erupted with chatter from everywhere. The second Apple carrying
half the
assault
force and Bull Simons, had landed the troops in the wrong place. There
heading
had been
one degree off coming in from the IP. (Whether pilot or equipment error I
don't
know.)
Placing them several hundred meters south of the camp. When the time ran
out
they saw
a building that didn't quite look like the guard quarters but it was the
only
building
around, so landed. That's where the infamous "Fire Fight at The
School" took
place. We
called it a school because it looked like a school, regardless of what it
really
was. You
couldn't just keep referring to it as the white building south of the
camp. There
were lots
of buildings south of the camp. Everything had to have a name.
That
way
everyone
knows what you're talking about. The liberal media, though, had a small
Field Day with that name. I remember some time later a female TV reporter
asking Col. Simons if he had killed anyone at The School. He said
something to the effect "I was approached by a big fella, I had a
tracer as every third round in my M-16 and saw three go through his
middle." The reporter didn't have a follow up question.
The troops in the wrong place were screaming, Gear Box was screaming and
all the
Apples
were screaming. The FM and VHF radios were almost impossible to read let
alone
get
anything in of your own. (The UHF was kept for AF use to call the MIG Cap
or
Weasels
if needed or to talk among ourselves.) The Apple that had dumped the guys
in the
wrong
place was the closest so did a 180 and went in to pick them up. All the
others took
off and
headed for the School as well just in case. No one has figured out yet why
there
wasn't a
midair.
The troops at the school were in a fierce fire fight the whole time they
were on the
ground.
Right after they landed people came pouring out of the building. Most were
too
large in
stature for Vietnamese. The guess was Chinese or Russian but no one had
time to
check.
The estimated kill was between one and two hundred and again, no one had
time to count.
Bull Simons and the rest of the assault force made it back to the camp
without a casualty.
The
whole incident only lasted a few minutes but it put the entire ground
operation off
schedule.
The two parameter teams, Red Wine and Green Leaf, headed out to do their
thing but
Blue Boy, the assault team inside the prison compound, had already
searched
most of
the prison. As soon as Simons got on the radio he asked Blue Boy for a
status
report.
The answer was "No Packages so far, still searching". (A Package
was the code word for a prisoner.) Simons then told us to take out the
foot bridge to the Citadel.
We called a group of building surrounded by a small moat the Citadel. It
was a few
hundred
meters southeast of the Camp and had a small foot bridge over the moat on
the
camp
side. Intel told us it was a military cadet training facility and probably
had a small
armory
for small arms. We didn't want anyone coming across that bridge armed and
get
within
rifle range of the camp.
Jerry and I put two WP bombs on it and when 2 came in saw the bridge was
wiped out
and
dropped short to get anyone that might have already come across. In the
process
taking
out a few blocks of a housing area between the camp and the citadel. WP
does a
real
number on wooden structures, the fire storm was not small.
About
this time the sequence of events gets all jumbled up. I have no idea what
happened
first,
second and so forth. About the time Simons and the troops got back to the
camp the
first SAM
took off. You cannot miss a SAM launch at night. It's like a mini Shuttle
launch,
lights up an area for miles in all directions. The first few were called
"SAM, SAM, DIVE, DIVE" but that soon became silly. There were so
many launches that you couldn't call them. There seemed to be about four
launch sites within a few miles of the camp on the West side of Hanoi. The
rest were further east and we didn't think they were a threat to us. Most
of the SAM's went high, after the MIG cap, Weasels and the Navy's two
hundred plane faint coming in from the East. The idea was to make them
think there was a major raid on Hanoi and not bother with a few planes on
the West side. It worked, NSA told us later that the Air Defense Commander
screamed "Fire at Will", shut down the net and went off the air.
We were at our briefed 3 thousand feet until the SAM's started coming our
way. Intel told
us we
wouldn't have any trouble with SAM's at that altitude. A lot some pencil
pushing
puke
knows. We all hit the deck and kept an eye on the launch sites close to us
and sure
enough,
someone decided to try for the guys to the West, us. The site closest to
us, just a
few miles
to the Northeast launched one that never got to the horizon. I watched it
rise
and
almost immediately it leveled off. Then the thing stopped moving on the
windscreen.
You
know what that means, collision course. We dove into the Red River and
turned
west.
Jerry was flying and I was turned around keeping an eye on the damn thing
as it
charged
at us over my right shoulder. I kept bumping the stick forward saying
"Lower,
Lower."
Jerry kept bumping the stick back saying "We're going to hit the
water." When
the
rocket plume on the thing seemed as big as the A-1 I yelled break left. We
went up
and over
the river bank, about fifty feet, and leveled off at phone poll height
going straight south.
We never saw the thing again. It either hadn’t had time to arm or buried
itself in the
water/mud
so deep that the flash of detonation was masked. That's another thing you
can't miss at night. The detonation of a SAM. It's a lightening bright
flash, quite large. They were going off over us constantly and when you
got used to them you didn't even bother to look up. For about a thirty
minute period there were no less then three SAM's airborne at any one time
and other times so many you couldn't count them. I've never heard an
estimate of the number fired that night but it has to be in the hundreds.
All the SAM misses would self detonate, either at a pre set altitude or
motor burn out, I don't know which.
Like I said, you wouldn't look up at a SAM detonation because they were so
numerous
unless
something was different. Then there was something different. The flash was
yellowish
instead of bright white. Looking up there was a large fire ball with
flaming
debris
falling from it. "Damn, someone got nailed." Then suddenly there
was a flaming dash across the sky heading southwest, then another and
another. Three dashes were all I saw, couldn't spend any more time looking
up.
Later we learned that a SAM had detonated close to a Weasel and filled his
bird with
holes.
Fuel was streaming out and his AB was igniting it in dashes across the
sky. Since he was losing all his fuel anyway he left it in AB till he ran
out. He got to the southern PDJ before bailing out.
About this time Blue Boy calls Axle and says "Search complete,
negative packages."
Silence,
then Simons asks for a repeat. "Search complete, negative packages,
repeat
negative
packages." More silence.
I don't
know what anyone else was thinking then but for me it was setup,
ambush. But
hell,
we'd already been there twenty minutes and they'd have sprung it by then.
So then it
turned to
"What the hell are we doing here?" And "How the hell are we
going to get our
asses out
of here intact?" Simons must have been thinking the same thing. He
called for the parameter teams to pull back and the Apples to come in for
pickup. Then he told us to take out the Big Bridge.
All sounds very simple but it sure wasn't. First of all we had no hard
ordnance and couldn't take out the Big Bridge. We had no more WP bombs and
that was the only thing that would have damaged a wooden bridge. The
bridge was Red Wines objective and were supposed to blow it but because of
their late start hadn't reached it before the pull back order.
A
little poop about the Big Bridge. The bridge was a few hundred meters
northeast of the
camp on
the road that ran in front of it. It was about a hundred feet long,
heavily
constructed
and could carry any vehicle up to a tank, we were told. Red Wine was
supposed
to blow it and hold the road while Green Leaf went southeast and held the
road
there.
During training the engineers said twelve pounds of C-4 would take out the
bridge.
However,
to be sure they were going to double it and use twenty-four pounds. Col.
Simons
said that he wanted to be doubly sure and doubled that to forty-eight
pounds then
added
that two people would carry forty-eight pounds each making it ninety-six
pounds of C-4. I would have liked to see what ninety-six pounds of C-4 did
to that bridge but it
wasn't to
be.
What
made things worse was that the out bound and pull back routes for the
parameter
teams
were different. Since each team out bound had to take out any possible
threats they
didn't
want to retrace their steps and possibly run into someone they missed. He
would
have been one pissed off gomer. There was a lot of housing just outside
the camp.
Intel
said it was for the camp commander, married officers and maybe some camp
workers.
The teams outbound went house to house making sure no one was going to be
a
threat.
It was a slow process so between starting out late and an early pull back
they had
no chance
of reaching their goal.
Since they hadn't got to the end of the outbound route there was no way
they could follow
the pull
back route. The radios went bananas again. "There's part of Red
Wine's team in
Green
Leaf's area of responsibility and part of Green Leaf's team in Red Wines
area. Do
not fire
without identification." This was repeated over and over again. So
much so that
the teams
couldn't get in to acknowledge. They were so out of breath that they
couldn't
say but
one word between two or three panting breaths. It wasn't fun to listen to.
Some time during all this we had expended 50% of our ordnance and called
in 3 and 4.
They
had done the same and called us back. We dumped the Rockeyes on the
bridge. The
Rockeye
is a Navy fast mover ordnance we had to certify the A-1 to carry while in
training at Eglin. It's a multi-munitions thing with gobs of little shaped
charges to take out vehicles, even tanks I guess. Not very good for
bridges. We put a lot of holes in it though. After that we laid down
continuos strafe till everyone was in the Apples and on their way.
I might add we never saw any vehicles or people moving anywhere near the
camp. There
was
a lot of traffic on the East west road along the Red River, about a klick
north, going
in and
out of Hanoi but no one turned toward the camp. Also about this time, the
SAM
launches
were slowing down but the MIG calls were increasing. Roughly twenty
minutes
into
the forty minutes this took we started picking up MIG calls. Intel told us
they had no
night
qualified pilots so we would have no trouble with MIG's. Right.
There was one call of an air to air missile firing. Said it zoomed right
past his plane. I don't know who it was and never saw any myself. That was
the only call of a firing I remember hearing. But the MIG warning calls
from Collage Eye or whoever makes those things were coming regularly.
Once the Jollies were off and running we putted along above and behind
them, guessing
where
they were since it was dark and no one could see each other. Everyone was
to call
the IP
outbound. One by one we heard the calls, thank god. Then we hear this
voice "Is
everybody
out?" "Who are you?" "This is Apple something or
other." "Where are you?"
"I'm
back at the holding point waiting to be sure everyone got out okay."
"God damn
jerk."
We told him to get his ass airborne and head for the IP as fast as his
funny machine
would
take him. He acknowledged. By this time we had nearly reached the IP
ourselves.
Jerry and I looked at each other and said "We don't have a
choice." With possible MIG's
around a
lonely Jolly all by himself makes for a pretty good target. We turned
around,
climbed
to a nice MIG target altitude, three or four thousand, and went Christmas
tree.
Every
light we had was turned on and we slowly drove back to Hanoi. With MIG
calls
coming
every few minutes I was sweating profusely. Don't know if it was hot, I
was
scared or
just pooped out but I was soaked. It seemed an eternity but as the camp
and the
West side
of Hanoi was slipping under the nose we heard the IP call. Lights out and
Split-S.
We beat feet west for the IP on the deck.
Getting away from the river valley and into the dark country side we
climbed to a safe
altitude
to clear the mountains en-route to Udorn. Then started to take care of
some pilot
stuff. We
had used up the left stub tank getting there and most of the right. We
were on
internal
over the target and used the centerline while holding. Time to clean up
the fuel
mess. The
right stub ran out almost right away, just a couple minutes were left in
it. Time to jettison. That's when the longest two seconds of my life
occurred.
I hit the button but instead of falling away it pitched up, slammed back
against the leading edge making it into a vee shape and came bouncing
along the leading edge of the wing toward the fuselage. I can see it to
this day, making four bounces and then falling away under the wing. It all
happened in one or two seconds, didn't even have time to say "Ohshit."
I sometimes wonder what would have happened to the right horizontal
stabilizer if it had decided to pass up and over the wing instead of
under. I don't dwell on it though, too scary.
The five Jollies, three
carrying the assault force and two empty because of no prisoners,
were all
together having had to hit a tanker in order to make it back. The A-1's
were
spread
out who knew where but still in radio contact. As we crossed the PDJ we
picked
up the
beeper of the downed Weasels and soon made voice contact. They were both
all
right. #1
was cool but #2 was a little panicky. Not because he was being threatened
but
because
he was all alone, in the dark, in the woods, in Laos. I didn't blame him
one bit.
Then we made contact with four Sandy's launched out of NKP in answer to
the Weasels
May Day.
They didn't know who we were because of the call signs. Took a hell of a
while to convince them that Peach and Apple really meant Sandy and Jolly.
The call sign battle had been long and arduous but in the end we lost.
I'll never forgive the Air Force for either picking them or allowing them
to be forced on us. At least the Army had call signs that if not macho
were at least neutral. Blue Boy, Red Wine, Green leaf, Gear Box and Axle.
What did the whimpy Air Force come up with? A-1's Peach, Jollies Apple,
the HH-3 that crash landed in the compound Banana, Talons Cherry and the
C-130 tanker Lime. A damn fruit salad. It was embarrassing, down right
humiliating. I'll never forgive those pencil pushing Air Force pukes for
that.
Anyway, it was decided that the two empty Jollies would hang around with
the four
Sandy's
and make a first light pick up. From what I understand it was uncontested
and
pretty
much a piece of cake.
Landing at Udorn we were all rushed to debriefing, a building right on the
flight line. As I walked in I was met by a group of Intel people with wide
grins across their faces and
seemed
higher then kites. I thought they were lunatics. They asked "How many
prisoners?"
I said "None, the camp was empty." The grins disappeared and
their faces
turned
pale. "What?" I repeated it and thought they were going to pass
out.
What
had happened was after leaving the target area the Army did a head count
and got it
all
screwed up. For a while they thought someone might have been left behind.
For several minutes over the radio we could hear the chatter between the
Jollies. "I've got thirty-three, I've got thirty-five, I've got
thirty-two, I've got thirty-one." Seemed to go on forever. Finally
they got it right and no one was left behind. The high orbiting EC-135
must have been relaying all that back to Udorn and it was interpreted by
the Intel people as a prisoner count. They all though we had rescued
thirty some prisoners.
Once that got squared away debriefing fell apart. People running every
which way. I don't remember ever being debriefed and don't think anyone
ever was. What preparations
had been
made to receive prisoners I don't know but they had to be considerable
and now
were all down the tubes. It was almost a state of panic.
Col. Simons, Jerry Rhine, Dick Meadows and maybe others were whisked off
to meet
with Gen.
Leroy Manor at Monkey Mountain, Da Nang. The rest of us were left in the
lurch and
forgotten about. The sun was coming up by then and we all wandered out
onto
the ramp.
Sat down on the cement cross legged, indian style, in circles of about
ten. Us in
our
reeking sweat soaked flight suits and the grunts with their blackened
faces, guns,
grenades
and what-have-you hanging off them. They were bleeding from every square
inch of
exposed skin from dozens of cuts, scrapes and bruises. We
all just sat
mumbling
to each other. No stories were being told. We had all just done it, seen
it or
heard it
and knew what had happened.
Then someone came out and handed a bottle to each of the circles. Everyone
took a sip
and
passed it around and around and around, till it was empty. All of us still
just mumbling to ourselves and each other. I can't attest to what was
going on at the other circles but there wasn't a dry eye at ours. A tear
running down every cheek. A gallant effort with nothing to show. To hell
and back for naught.
John Waresh, USAF, Ret.
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