Hugh Mills - Low Level Hell

Sidewinder had given us the call sign and FM frequency for the infantry unit on the ground in landing zone Toast, so I came up on fox mike 46.45 and keyed the ground unit commander. “Gangplank Six, this is Darkhorse One Seven. We are a hunter-killer team arriving from the north. Should be at your location in about thirty seconds. What have you got?”

With sporadic bursts of small-arms fire audible in the background, the ground unit commander sharply reported back on FM. “Roger, Darkhorse, this is Gangplank Six. We’ve got a platoon in the woods northeast of my position. As soon as they cleared the LZ we picked up heavy fire from light weapons. I’ve got one platoon pinned down… they’re attempting to maneuver now against the bunkers. Got five or six people in the lead element who are cut off. We need to locate enemy position and find out what’s happened to our people.”

“Roger that,” I responded. “I should be there about now. Can you give me a smoke to mark your lead element?”

“Smoke’s coming.”

Closing rapidly from the north, the LZ area popped out right ahead. Watching me like a hawk and monitoring all the radio transmissions, Foster asked me how I felt about starting a search pattern. “Ready!” I answered.

Foster immediately keyed Gangplank. “OK, I’m going to bring the scout in. Stop firing. I say again, stop firing so you don’t hit him when he makes his pass to get an idea of how you’re situated.”

Then, to me, Foster instructed, “OK, One Seven, come in far enough south from the contact point that Charlie can’t identify. Make your first pass fast from the southwest to the northeast. I’ll guide you onto the LZ.”

Looking over my right shoulder at my crew chief, I keyed the intercom. “Farrar, are you ready?”

I could see his boyish grin. “Ready, sir. Let’s get ‘em!”

In an instantaneous response to my control movements, the little OH-6 pulled into a hard right turn and came around directly over the trees. Foster gave me a fast, “Right ten degrees, back left five degrees.”

I broke in over the jungle onto the southern end of the LZ just as I spotted the ground unit’s yellow smoke billowing up—just into the tree line at the far end of the landing zone.

To let the ground commander know that both the gun and scout were aware of the lead element’s location, Foster transmitted, “Gangplank, the gun’s got your smoke, and identified.”

I came roaring in low at a fast eighty to ninety knots, right over the heads of our troops in the landing zone area. I could see them deployed on each side of the LZ, guarding against the prospect of the VC making any movements against their flanks.

Then, as I approached the far end of the LZ, the company commander’s position flashed underneath me. He was about fifty meters back from the tree line in the middle of the landing zone, with his RTO beside him, and he was motioning me in a northeasterly direction toward the location of his lead element.

I circled the tree line but didn’t see anything. I came around again, circling at the yellow smoke. But I still didn’t see anything or take any fire.

The area I was circling was approximately an acre in size with triple-canopy jungle. Trees were 100 to 150 feet in height, and at the speed I was going I couldn’t see down into the jungle. I couldn’t locate any sign of the friendly lead element or the enemy bunker area. I slowed down and tightened the circles I was making. I got slower and slower… still no ground fire. Still couldn’t see anything.

The OH-6 began to talk back to me. As I got close to a hover, I had to begin to use the left rudder authority to hold the aircraft in trim. And I knew I was a perfect target for enemy ground fire.

But screw that. I kept the OH-6 lying over on her right side while I circled so I could see straight down into the trees. While I strained for a glimpse of the platoon’s lead element, I kept keying the intercom to ask Farrar if he had seen anything. Al had his head poked as far out the door as he could get it. I could hear the air rushing by the aircraft when he answered, “No, sir, I don’t have anything… nothing yet.”

As I circled around for a third time, I cued the infantry ground commander. “Do you have any radio contact with your people out front?”

“No, Darkhorse, we haven’t been able to talk to them, and every time we try to move forward we get fired on by AKs and SGM light machine guns. We haven’t been fired on in the last few minutes, but every time we move they take a crack at us. We think that our people are fifteen to twenty meters ahead of us. They are our point team.”

On the third pass, I spotted the lead element of the infantry company, half in and half out of the woods. Just at the tree line, one of the lead soldiers was lying on his back, waving to me and pointing to his front.

I needed to know who this soldier was. “Gangplank, I’ve got your lead element. A man is waving at me and pointing toward his front. Can you identify him?”

“Roger, Darkhorse. That’s Three Six, Gangplank Three Six. He’s the leader of our northernmost element, and it’s the people from his outfit who are cut off.”

“OK, Gangplank,” I came back. “Now that I’ve got your lead element, let me go to work.” I immediately pulled the ship into a tighter orbit—almost to a hover—then moved over top of the lead soldiers to a position where I could look down into the trees just beyond our friendlies. I still didn’t see any sign of their point men.

Then, suddenly, Farrar yelled into my phones. “Hold on… hold on, sir, I see a leg… you see the leg?”

By the time Al shouted, I had gone past his point of reference. I hauled a sharp one eighty and came to a hover just as Farrar yelled again, “Here, sir, right under us. Mark, mark right under us. Do you see the guy’s leg?”

Sure enough! As I strained to see through the trees to the ground, I saw the leg of a soldier lying dead still on the jungle floor. I recognized the jungle fatigues—U.S. type—with an American jungle boot on the right foot. But that was all I could see—the point man’s right leg and foot.

I keyed the mike. “OK, Gangplank, I’ve got your people located. They’re out in front of you about forty meters and I’m going to—Damn! I’m taking fire… taking fire!”

I instantly pushed the OH-6’s nose full forward on the cyclic and pulled an armpit full of collective. This jerked us up and away from the AK-47 that had opened up from directly below. It was definitely an AK-47.1 had flown scouts long enough to recognize its loud, sharp, ripping staccato. Everybody remembered that weapon. It was a sound you never forgot.

Neither Farrar nor I saw where the rounds had come from. I could tell only that they were close beneath us, probably not more than twenty to thirty meters on either side.

I guessed, also, that our enemy below was probably NVA rather than VC. It was fairly well known that the Viet Cong, when discovered from the air, were less controlled and quicker to shoot at their target. Regular North Vietnamese Army troops were more disciplined. They would let a target come right up on them before revealing themselves by firing.

Cobra pilot Foster probably didn’t need my “taking fire” radio outburst to know that I had undoubtedly run into a bunch of trouble. When he saw my nose drop down and my tail flip up, he knew I was trying to get my ass out of there in a hurry.

The maneuver had rolled me out straight ahead, putting some speed and distance between me and the AK-47. As I pushed the OH-6 for all she had, I keyed my mike to talk to Foster. “Three Two, One Seven is taking AK fire down here. I’m coming back around to the right.”

I knew there wasn’t anything the gun could do. He couldn’t shoot because the friendlies were right underneath me. Speeding up to about sixty knots, I made a right turn and headed back over the landing zone again. In the few seconds that it took me, my mind was whirling. I kept asking myself, what in the hell am I going to do? I can’t shoot, the gun can’t shoot. I’m not sure where the cutoff friendlies are. The enemy can shoot at me, but we can’t shoot back because we don’t have a defined target. What can I do?