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“What’s so funny?” I asked, slightly annoyed that he was taking this dangerous, tense mission so lightly.
“Sir, they’re surrounded, by a herd of monkeys! The damn things are all over the place. The only people down there are four guys in the patrol,” Brewster said.
“Are you sure?” the major asked as he and I exchanged puzzled looks.
“Yes, sir, I’m positive,” Brewster replied. Vietnam had gibbon monkeys, and they moved in herds. If they felt threatened, they would throw sticks and rocks at the threat. They were big and noisy critters.
“Delta Six, One-Niner. What do you want me to do? We have your position.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him who his enemy was.
“Chicken-man, if you can lay down some suppressive fire to the south, we’ll break to the north while you keep them down.”
“Roger, wait one,” I replied.
Switching radios from FM to UHF, I contacted Lobo and Chicken-man One-Four, who had been monitoring my conversation with Delta Six on the FM radio. Enlightening them on the true nature of the enemy, I said, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. On this next pass, lay down fire on the south side of the trail. Chicken-man One-Four, hold off dropping flares. Lobo, do you copy?”
“Roger, One-Nine, will make a run on your mark. One pass sufficient?”
“Lobo, yeah, that should be enough,” I chuckled. “I don’t think we will take a lot of fire from the monkeys.” As we came around, my guns opened fire and the Cobra rolled hot with minigun and rockets. The patrol successfully avoided the enemy monkeys and lived to fight another day. We laughed our asses off back at the base while refueling. In the TOC that night, we found out that it was a new patrol leader. I was glad that I hadn’t divulged the true enemy situation to him, but I did tell the brigade intel officer that the enemy situation reported might not be quite correct. He should get a scout bird out in the morning to see if there were any bodies.
After refueling, we returned to our original plan on the Song Be River. I had run this route the night before with another copilot and had run it the night before that as well. In both cases, I had run it from south to north. Tonight I would change it up and run north to south. We were about five hundred feet and sixty knots. There was a known crossing site over the river, which in this particular area was only about fifty feet wide. As we approached, out of the far bank, what appeared to be a string of green basketballs came arching towards us. Our door gunner opened fire with our 50-cal, engaging the .51-cal that initially engaged us. As I executed a left turn, Lobo called me.
“Chicken-man, you’re taking fire.”
“Roger, we’re engaging.”
Suddenly, my crew chief opened fire with the M60 onto the near bank. “Taking fire!” he shouted.
“Negative, Chicken-man, you’re taking it from behind. Lobo rolling hot.” What the hell? And then it dawned on me. We had flown into a trap, but as we had approached from a direction they weren’t expecting, they were out of position. As we continued our left turn, I heard Lobo’s rockets impacting. The major was on the radio calling Song Be Artillery with a fire mission. Suddenly it was as bright as day as the flare ship was dropping flares, and now we could see what was shooting at us. Three gun emplacements had been set up, with two on one side of the river and one on the other side. One gun on the near side was out of position for our flying north to south and still hadn’t engaged us but was out in the open. Lobo had completed his first pass and was about to engage this target when it opened up on him. That really pissed Lobo off, and he punched off the remaining seven rockets he had. The gun never answered his challenge. As for the two guns engaging me, the one that Lobo fired on didn’t answer, and the initial gun fell silent. As we climbed to altitude, the major took over directing artillery fire on the crossing.
The next morning, a scout team from First Battalion, Ninth Cavalry was out and found three destroyed guns and indications that someone had died with the guns and that the bodies had been removed.
The NVA didn’t like leaving their dead for us to find.
Major Saunders was okay in my book, and he would prove to be better than just okay.
Several nights later, the mission was given to Charlie Company. They were flying the same area and route. The same trap was laid for him, but they engaged before the NVA could. The next day, a scout helicopter team found twenty-one bodies and three guns left behind by the NVA.
Chapter 21
Other Missions
Besides combat assault, resupply and Night Hunter Killer missions, we flew other missions, but not as frequently. Being lift ships or slicks, as we were referred to, we could be asked to haul anything and everything from one point to another. Some days we might find ourselves in support of a Vietnamese unit that was attached to the division, and then you could expect chickens, ducks, women, children and only God knew what else in your aircraft. Several times I was asked to fly psyops missions.
Generally for a psyops mission, a very large loudspeaker would be placed in the door of the aircraft—barely, it was so big. It would be connected to the aircraft’s electrical power supply, and a microphone or tape player was added with a US soldier and a Vietnamese soldier. We would then fly out to a predetermined location, and the tape player would start, or the Vietnamese guy would start talking. I wou
ld fly at twenty-five hundred feet. Thank God we were wearing flight helmets as the noise was tremendous. Wouldn’t have been so bad if we were playing music, but we never did.
“Good morning, Mr. Cory. Ready for some flying today?” asked the captain in charge of the division psyops program.
“Yes, sir. Beats sitting around waiting all day,” I responded.
“Good. Well, here’s what we have today. Need you to fly out to this intersection south of An Loc and orbit while Captain Ngnan operates the player and talks. Sergeant Davidson will be dropping leaflets as well,” he explained as he pointed out the location on his map.
The leaflets were small pieces of paper with Vietnamese writing and pictures. They were basically a free pass to “Chieu Hoi,” the Vietnamese term for surrendering. The Chieu Hoi Program allowed an enemy soldier to surrender and start working for us as a scout. Some of these scouts worked out; others came in long enough to get a hot meal and a rest period and then melted back into the jungle, returning to their units.
We loaded the aircraft and took off on a forty-minute flight to the road intersection. The division had been operating in the area for some time and was using the existing road network more often now, relying on helicopters to do all the heavy lifting in less accessible areas. This area wasn’t as heavily vegetated as other areas around An Loc but was covered in bamboo. As I entered an orbit, Captain Ngnan turned on the loudspeaker and began talking in the singsong language of Vietnam. It was going to be a long couple of hours.
“Hey, Mr. Cory, I can see some guys down there in the bamboo,” indicated Specialist Linam, my crew chief, who was sitting next to the loudspeaker.
