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A few hours later, the first sergeant knocked on Major Sundstrum’s door. “Excuse me, sir, there’s a lieutenant colonel from Division staff here that wants to talk to you.” Major Sundstrum had been in the unit about five months and had led a flight on day one of the Cambodian Incursion. He was pretty even-tempered and generally liked by everyone. He was about six foot two inches tall with a slim build but always walked hunched over, so he appeared shorter. He had been in a horrific crash on a previous tour and had a bad back as a result, which may have accounted for the hunched walk. He, unlike most pilots, did not sport a mustache. Like most flying majors, he was on his third tour in Vietnam and would be going home once he gave up command.
“Yeah, send him in,” Major Sundstrum said as he stood and came around his desk. The lieutenant colonel entered and extended his hand.
“Major Sundstrum, I’m Lieutenant Colonel Bronson from Division G-2. If you have a few minutes, I would like to talk to you.”
“Yes, sir, have a seat. Can I get you a cup of coffee?”
“No, I’m good.”
“Well, sir. What you got?” the major asked as he leaned up against his desk.
“I was reviewing the mission you flew on July twenty-seventh, when the Blue Max aircraft was shot down at Bu Gia Map. Can you tell me what exactly happened?”
“Afraid I can’t. I didn’t fly that mission.”
“Well, you were the air mission commander, weren’t you?”
“No. I flew later that day for the last extraction out of Cambodia, but Lieutenant Cory was the air mission commander for the first mission of the day. Unfortunately, he went back to the States a couple of days ago. From what he told me, he wouldn’t be much help to you as he didn’t see the missile. He was almost to the landing zone, low and taking small-arms fire, when it was launched from a ridge-line to the west of the LZ.”
“I was hoping to talk to the mission commander on that one. I spoke to the other Blue Max aircraft commander and he said about the same thing. Are any pilots here that were on that mission and saw the launch?”
“Let me see.” The major looked at the doorway and called out, “First Sergeant, could you come in here, please?”
The first sergeant appeared in the doorway. “Yes, sir, what’s up?”
“Top, could you send someone through the pilot hooches and see if any pilots are there that flew on the mission that had the Blue Max bird shot down? If there are, have them get up here ASAP.”
“Yes, sir, I’ll have Lockwood on it right away. Just got to find that boy.” With that, the first sergeant turned and left the orderly room.
“Let me ask, why the sudden interest in this? I’m a bit surprised no one has asked about it before now,” Major Sundstrum said.
“Information flow upward is a bit slow. An aircraft shot down is more of a footnote in the daily briefs, and with the CG’s aircraft going into the hillside, things have been a bit confusing in the head shed. We got around to clearing up the paperwork and came across Blue Max’s after-action report. When we started comparing it with the after-action report the infantry submitted, we thought it best to talk to the air mission commander for this one. You guys don’t normally submit after-action reports, so we wanted to hear your side of this. If this is what I think it is, then we have a game changer,” Lieutenant Colonel Bronson explained.
“How so?” Major Sundstrum asked.
“If this is what I think it is, an SA-7 Russian antiaircraft missile, then we have a major problem. The Russians got the specs on one of our Redeye missiles and began developing their own version back in the early sixties. They had trouble copying the Redeye, so they’ve been in the development stage for some time. It’s a man-portable infrared tracking missile. It’s been in the Russian inventory since 1968, but we haven’t seen it here. This could be the first firing of this system,” he explained.
“Damn. What’s the effective range of this thing?” Major Sundstrum asked.
“The first production ones were pretty crappy. They had a small charge and were slow in flight. A jet aircraft would outrun them. The missile always tracks to the hottest spot on the aircraft, which is the engine. Actually, the hottest part is four feet behind the aircraft, where the engine heat is the most concentrated, so the missile generally misses a jet. However, on helicopters such as the AH-1, the hottest part is four feet down the tail boom, and helicopters aren’t going to outrun this thing. The reported range on them is up to fifteen hundred meters, but they may be developing the next vers
ion up to twenty-three hundred meters.”
“That is going to cause problems for airmobile operations if they start showing up in numbers. Any way to defeat the things?” asked Major Sundstrum.
“About the only way is to fly low and get something hotter than your exhaust out there to distract it—drop a flare or a thermal grenade. But since the tracker has a very narrow view, whatever is used is going to have to be very close to the aircraft,” Lieutenant Colonel Bronson confessed.
“Sir, you’re just full of good news today, aren’t you?”
Smiling, Lieutenant Colonel Bronson said, “Well, the good news is that it needs five meters at least to activate the rocket motor, and one hundred and fifty meters to reach maximum speed, so fly low.”
A knock on the door interrupted the conversation. “Sir, I was told you wanted to see me.” Mr. Sinkey was standing in the doorway. He hadn’t seen the CO since his comments the other night about not raising his hand to elect Mr. Dumas to AC status. My shit is in the wind, Sinkey was thinking.
“Yeah, you were on the mission when the Cobra went down up at Bu Gia Map. What chalk were you flying?” Major Sundstrum asked.
“Sir, I was in Chalk Six that day.”
“Come in and sit down. This is Lieutenant Colonel Bronson from Division G-2. Tell him exactly what you saw,” Major Sundstrum instructed Mr. Sinkey.
