A Vietnam Retrospective
PART 11
Click on the blue cube to go back to Part 10
==========================
On December 29th, a Primo LOH (Light Observation Helicopter--an OH-6A) pilot by the name of CW2 Robert "The Reverand" Black (Pictured on the left, 1970 Duc Pho) had dropped off a pack (passenger) on the river west of Quang Ngai (near the Horseshoe) and took off. When Black turned up missing, Art Magee was able to find his downed aircraft within minutes of the word going out. It was in the water, but Bob's body was gone. He was found two days later, several miles down stream, tangled in some debris. It was New Years eve. Bob had spent a lot of his available time among us and he had been part of a regular poker table that had included Chuck Creamer, Dennis Casey, Greg Latham, Rick Gregore, Gary Fisher, Jeff Zavales and on occasion Floyd King or myself. I'd keep a hundred dollars a month set aside just to squander on poker and bourbon. I rarely won, but it is one of my fondest memories of Duc Pho, all due to these animated individuals infectious mixture of play and humor. As January rolled around, death or DEROS had claimed almost half of these players.
As the New Year began, activity seemed to fall off as if an extension of the annual Christmas week truce. In the absence of large combat assaults or the 11th Brigade infantry units getting into heavy contact, aircraft readiness and maintenance took a high priority. The rumblings of a big operation had begun, but little was taken too seriously.
A lot of available time in the company area was spent fooling around with cameras. I think the PX film sales took a big jump during this period. In previous months, if you were on "primary" on a given day, you'd easily log between 4 and 6 hours of flight time, jumping from mission to mission throughout the day. Even the "secondary" team was guaranteed at least a couple of hours. In those first weeks of January, you were lucky to get in two hours of flight time during a 24-hour primary assignment. I flew re-supply with Bob Gentry in the Dolphins on two different days, as his peter pilot, just to "get some" stick time.
Towards the middle of January, there were a number of large ARVN operations we were involved with that in hindsight were preparatory for what was soon to come. We first heard the rumors in the form of talk from some of the hootch maids: "You go north!" What the hell did that mean? We were all well aware of the attempt in September to assault a POW camp in the north and rapped about the possibility of being used on similar type missions.
It was about this time that I was introduced to Ray Ervin. He'd come in contact with some of the crews and had made it known that he wanted to fly with the Sharks in the worst way. He was a Pathfinder, one of those incredible psychos that would get dropped in the middle of "No Where" with only an M-16, a chainsaw, and a bad attitude. They'd cut an entire LZ and then lounge about, just waiting to kill a few dinks before getting pulled out. The bulk of them were Vietnam's version of "Bad Mother %#@*&#s!"
Not only had Ray survived any number of nightmarish predicaments, the guy could procure "anything," if it existed in Vietnam... and even a few things that didn't. Soon after meeting him, he asked some of the crews if they missed the company of women. He told them where to go, when to be there, and what they needed to bring. He once told me, "If you get me in the Sharks and we go down, I guarantee we're getting out."
Now I didn't consider myself any sort of empowered, personnel recruiter, but this dude was tough. And if it was true what they said about us heading north, Ray was just the type of individual who I'd like to be able to grab onto his belt loop if the shit ever did hit the fan. By that night, Ray was in the Sharks and was my gunner. It wasn't the standard route of entry into the Shark crews, but desperate times call for desperate solutions, and Ray could definitely be part of any solution in this place. Fred, you whore.
In the last week of January, the word came down... "Pack it up. We're leaving."
 
 
The above photos
are just a few of our “move” to Quang Tri, Jan 1971. Top right: WO1 Bennie Holmes. Middle left: WO1 P.J. Roths, 1LT Bob Hackett and CW2 "Sugar Bear" Gambrill.
We stowed personal stuff and were only allowed flight essentials. The maintenance convoy would move the cots and sleeping bags. It took us two days to secure what was going and we didn't have a real clue as to where we were headed or how long we'd be gone. At the time, the Shark gun platoon consisted of eight C-Model aircraft and only nine available pilots. The predicament was one of scheduled rotations. In mid-December, we'd had eleven gun pilots: Cpt Mike Ackerman, CW2 Jarvis Gambrell, CW2 Dennis Casey , CW2 Gary Werner, CW2 Dennis McCabe, CW2 Greg Manuel, WO Bruce Marshall, CW2 Gary Harter, WO Fred Thompson, 1Lt Bob Hackett, and Cpt Jimmy Souders. Mark Stefen and Jim Kinne had been wounded in November and Jeff Zavales had deros'd soon after. Casey and Werner were so short, they were to stay behind. It was decided that we'd figure it out when we got to where we were going.
The Dolphin H-Models were loaded up with crews and related gear and left as a flight on the morning of Thursday, January 28th with a destination known only as "north." I'm not sure of how all the Shark pilots paired off, but most were solo pilots with a crewchief as peter pilot. For most of us, it was the first time since flight school that we'd flown a solo pilot cross-country. The adventure had begun.
As the flight of slicks took off from Duc Pho, the peter principal kicked in and Buddy Howard (Dolphin 29) had an engine failure on takeoff in aircraft 516. He was flying with a Cpt Garner (or possibly Richard Gebauer) the engine was totally hosed and the aircraft was ultimately DX'd. Obtaining a replacement aircraft delayed they're arrival at our final destination by almost a week. We performed convoy cover for the entire route that first day, as the slicks proceeded to Da Nang. The convoy of our vehicles encountered few minor holdups, and by dark all had arrived safely in Da Nang where we secured for the night.
A few of us went into "Gunfighter Village" and did a few cocktails with the Air Force guys. The officers club there sported thick, red carpeting, plush black leather chairs and a beautiful hand carved red mahogany bar. They had multiple televisions that picked up AFVN out of Saigon. We watched a broadcast of the Bob Hope Christmas Show before returning to the aircraft for a not-so restful sleep on corrugated metal.
The sight of manicured lawns, sidewalks and apartment housing was an absolute culture shock to us. Duc Pho had a lot of creature comforts, but nothing like this. I had no less than half an inch of mud caked to my boots and I literally gawked at the movie theater with a popcorn machine out front, right next to the ticket window. I felt like I'd stepped into Alice's Wonderland. It was my first realization of the many differences between the Army and the Air Force.
 
The Air Force's ”Gunfighter Village”. The right photo is of a “cock fight”.
------------------------
End of Part 11 of 20 Parts.
Click on the beacon to go to Part 12
|
Return to top of the Biography Page.
