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“Hey, Mr. Reid, what’s our mission today?” asked Mike Patterson, the crew chief, as Roger Reid, the aircraft commander, and his copilot, First Lieutenant Gordon Bellem, a newbie on his first mission, approached the aircraft. Tossing his gear onto his seat, Reid motioned for everyone to gather around.
“Hey, Craig, come over here,” Patterson called to Craig Tonjes, today’s door gunner. Craig was actually a crew chief, but his aircraft was in maintenance and the assigned door gunner was on R&R, so Craig had volunteered to man the guns today with Patterson. Evidently, no one had told him never to volunteer.
“Okay, guys, today we have a Chuck Chuck mission. We’ll fly over to Kontum and pick up our passenger, a Vietnamese colonel, and then bore holes in the sky over Firebases Five and Six. I’ll try to keep us at two thousand feet, so we shouldn’t be a target for Charlie, but I expect we’ll take some fire. Weather today is going to be crappy, with low ceilings and possibly some rain. May want to be wearing your jackets ’cause it’s going to be cool too. We’ll refuel at Dak To. Any questions?” Reid asked.
“Why are we stuck with Chuck Chuck? It’s one boring mission,” Mike Patterson asked, fidgeting with the ammo for his M60 machine gun.
“Hey, today is Chicken-man’s first day of operational flying in this region, and I guess the powers that be want us to have an easy day to further our orientation. Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. If there’s no more pissing, bitching, groaning, moaning or complaining, let’s get the preflight done and saddle up.”
Reid pulled out the preflight checklist and began reading off the items, with Gordon doing the hands-on inspection. Moving down the side of the aircraft, Gordon noticed a small piece of dark tape on the edge of the fuel cap. “Hey, Patterson, what’s this tape for?” Gordon asked.
“Oh, sorry, sir, I forgot to pull that off this morning.” Patterson stepped over and pulled the tape off.
“What’s it for?” Gordon asked again.
“Sir, Charlie has a habit, or did, of sneaking through the perimeter at night and sabotaging the aircraft. He takes a US hand grenade, tapes the spoon with a piece of electrical tape and pulls the pin. He then drops the grenade down the fuel intake and slips away. Eventually the jet fuel would eat the tape off, the spoon would come off, and five seconds later the aircraft blows up. Putting the dark tape over the corner of the fuel cap lets us know if Charlie was here last night. He won’t see it in the dark, and we can tell in the morning if the fuel cap was opened,” Patterson explained. Gordon stowed that bit of information away for future preflight checks.
After everything was preflighted and the aircraft started, they headed out to get their passengers at Kontum, twenty-five miles to the north. When they arrived at Kontum, the ARVN colonel boarded the aircraft before Reid even had a chance to roll the throttle back to flight idle. Adjusting his headset, he addressed Reid.
“Gooood moring, chef,” he said in his partial broken English. By doing so, he just confirmed in his mind who was in command of the aircraft, and it was not the lieutenant.
“Morning, sir,” Reid responded, turning partially around. Confirmation that the warrant officer is in charge, the colonel thought.
“We go Six. We go now. You fly ten thousand,” the colonel said, waving his hand towards the front of the aircraft, indicating let’s go.
Reid turned to Gordon. “Let’s go.”
“Did he say fly at ten thousand?” Gordon asked with a bit of surprise.
“That’s what the man requested, so take us up,” Reid instructed. As Gordon started the takeoff, Reid addressed the colonel. “Sir, what’s the call sign and frequency for your people on the ground? I’ll put them on your number one switch on the intercom box. When you want to talk to them, just turn the dial to one and then transmit.”
“How you say, not first rodeo,” the colonel said with a laugh.
“Sorry, sir.”
“No problem. They four-six point five.”
Reid cranked in the new
frequency on the FM radio. “Roger, sir. FM radio one is set to the frequency if you want to contact them.”
“Thank you.” The colonel started attempting to contacting Dai-uy Nguyen on the firebase to get an update on their situation. Until they were closer, he was unsuccessful.
As they climbed to altitude, Patterson and Craig snuggled deeper into their jackets. “Hey, sir, it’s getting a bit cool back here,” Patterson stated over the intercom.
“Oh really? Let me turn the heater on for you. There, how’s that?” Reid said. Everyone knew the Huey had no heater in the back and they were flying with the doors open.
“Much better, sir. Thank you, sir,” Craig interjected, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
When they flew over the firebase at ten thousand feet, it was obvious to Reid and Gordon that something was amiss. Sporadic small-arms fire could be seen coming from three sides of the firebase, as indicated by occasional green and red tracers being exchanged. In addition, they could see artillery impacting two klicks to the north of the firebase, but aside from that, all appeared normal. Flying at ten thousand feet didn’t let one observe details on the ground, but the temperature was nice and cool, so no one complained. The added benefit was no one was shooting at you either. After an hour of flying circles, Reid informed the colonel that they had to refuel at Dak To and he departed station to do so.
En route to Dak To, which was only seven miles to the east of Firebase Six, the US advisor contacted Reid on FM 2. “Chicken-man Two-Seven, Gambler Six, over.”
“Gambler Six, Chicken-man Two-Seven, go ahead, over.”
“Chicken-man Two-Seven, they’re running low on ammo on Firebase Six. Could you take a load in to resupply them?” Gambler Six asked.
“Shit, sir.” Reid paused to think this through. “Gambler Six, if I do this, I want to get in fast and get out fast. Could they sling the ammo so I can keep moving and punch it off over their side of the firebase? I’ll slow down as I go over so we put it where they want it and not have it go all over the place. Over.”
