Hugh Mills - Low Level Hell

“What’s the condition of the aircraft?” I asked.

“The chopper appears to be on its side, possibly upside down. The rotors have been torn off, and the engine is going max RPMs. Can’t see pilot or door gunner. We’re afraid the whole thing could go up any minute. Can you tell us how to shut down the engine? Need instructions.”

I thought for a second. There was no way I could explain to those soldiers how to get into the cockpit and turn off that aircraft. I had to get down there and do it myself.

I went back to Tanker. “You’ll never find the engine controls. I need to get down there myself. Can you bust me a landing zone so I can put this Loach down?”

“Sure can,” he answered. “How much of an LZ do you need?”

Without any light to help guide me down into a hole in the jungle, I needed a spot at least fifty feet diameter, as close to the wreck as possible. I also told him that my other crewman was a pilot, and one way or another we’d get in and out of there.

Seconds later, the lead Sheridan cranked up and began to neutral-steer where it was. The tank growled, twisted, and turned in the little area, tearing down trees and bamboo. In three to four minutes, there was a landing zone just a few feet from Ameigh’s aircraft. The LZ wasn’t flat, not with all those knocked-down trees and other vegetation forming the floor. But when Tanker asked if his freshly carved lima zulu was OK, I told him to back off his Sheridan and let me give it a try.

I turned to Dwight Cheek. “I’m going to set this thing down in that spot the Sheridan just busted, then I’m going to get out of the. ship. When I do, I’d like you to hold it at a hover. We’ll be right on top of a bunch of torn-down trees—no solid ground, no firm footing—you’ll have to be very easy until I can get over and check out the wreck and see if I can shut down that engine. Do you have any problem with that?” Dwight didn’t bat an eye.

I went around to the west and started a run into the LZ at almost a dead hover. Once over the jungle hole, I began to let down vertically, with Cheek and me hanging out the aircraft doors to make sure the tail was clear.

I set her down as lightly as I could on a precarious perch of broken tree limbs and stumps. The little OH-6 began to totter. I lifted her up, turned about three feet to the right, and set her down again.

“OK, Dwight, you’ve got it. Pull in a little pitch and just hold her right here. I’ll be back as quick as I can. Now be ready for a change in weight when I get out of the aircraft.”

I disconnected my helmet and seat belt and slid my right leg out the door. Then I lifted my left leg up and over my cyclic stick, which Cheek was controlling now from his side, and jumped out of the ship.

I landed on a tree limb sticking up about two feet off the ground. Doing a quick balancing act, I worked my way through the branches and into the arms of a couple of troopers who had run over to help me.

They grabbed me and led the way to Ameigh’s smashed aircraft. I could hear the high-pitched whine of the jet engine that was still running wild amidst a white cloud of choking CS gas.

Reaching the wreck, I had to momentarily turn away because my eyes were watering so badly. Tears ran down my face, and my nose and mucous membranes poured. I arm-swiped my face with the sleeves of my fatigue jacket.

All the troopers around me were in the same condition. One of them was trying to get relief by standing with his face up in the OH-6’s rotor wash, trying to flush out some of the CS gas.

I approached the aircraft and could see that the engine cowl on the right-hand side was open and the ship was lying almost on its back. The noise was almost unbearable. With the downed bird’s engine running full blast, the ACAV motors going, and Cheek’s Loach hovering, the nearby armored crewman could hardly hear me yell into his ear, “Get me some help in here. We’re going to try to lift the ship up enough so I can crawl into the left side of the cabin and get at the engine controls.”

The fuel valve control knob and the battery off-on switch were both located on the console circuit breaker panel between the seats. By going into the left side of the cabin, I could probably get at those switches easier because the left seat was vacant. All I would have to do is find the fuel switch and pull it out; that would immediately cut off the fuel supply to the engine and shut it down.

With the help of about five troopers braving the CS gas, we lifted the left side of the aircraft about eighteen inches off the ground. The armor guys held it there momentarily, and I slithered into the cabin. I immediately started feeling around to get a fix on where things were.

It was black as pitch. My initial reaction was that absolutely nothing was where it ought to be in a normal Loach cockpit. Things were torn loose. Everything seemed crushed over on top of itself, accordion style. Finding that fuel cutoff was going to be some kind of trick. Damn! If I could only see something. This mother could go sky high any second!

With the fingers of my right hand, I felt my way up over what should have been the back of the left front seat. Then on to where the console and the circuit breaker panel were between the seats, where, with a little luck, I’d find the push-pull fuel shutoff valve control.

God, it was eerie in there! Everything bashed to hell, Jim Ameigh and Slater in there someplace, in what condition I couldn’t imagine, and the aircraft’s engine running red-line and tearing itself apart.

Groping wildly now, my fingers suddenly touched the fuel valve. I yanked it hard, and to my utter horror the whole switch assembly—valve, cable, and all—tore loose out of the panel and into my hand.

The engine whined on. My eyes burned from CS gas and from the sheer frustration of the ripped-out valve. My thoughts raced, trying to figure out what I could do now.

A last resort occurred to me—try to shut her down at the engine itself. I backed out of the aircraft. The soldiers helped me relift the OH-6 so I could crawl into the engine cowl door.

I really couldn’t tell what I was dealing with in there, but I felt a push-pull tube on the fuel control that seemed to be the throttle linkage. When I pulled and turned it, the fuel shut off. The engine wound down and stopped.

Now I had to get back into the wreck and see about Ameigh and Slater. As I crawled into the rear cargo compartment, one of the soldiers wiggled in behind me. He didn’t have a shirt on, but a medical bag was tied around his neck.

“I’m the medic,” he said. “How many casualties have you got, sir?”

“I don’t know, I can’t tell yet, but the crew chief should be right here.”

Groping in the dark, I suddenly brushed against a leg. I assumed it was Jim Slater’s. He was still strapped into the gunner’s seat, his upper body bent forward where the caved-in engine and transmission had pushed him. With the wrecked aircraft inverted, he was hanging upside down from the roof.

I reached up and held Slater around the waist as I punched the automatic seat belt release. I kept jabbing at the*release but nothing came loose. The damned thing must have jammed. I was frantic. What I didn’t realize was that Slater was also attached to his monkey strap, which was still holding him securely in place.

I moved around to the right and Doc came up into the cargo hold with me. There was about three feet of headroom, with our knees on the ground.

I pulled out my survival knife, and with both Doc and me cradling him, I cut through Slater’s belts. His body fell into our arms like a heavy sack of wheat. We yelled to the soldiers outside to lift the aircraft again so we could pull Slater out.

Dragging him into the open, Doc tried to rip away the top of Slater’s flight suit to start working on him, but the chicken plate was in the way. Doc had never seen a chicken plate before, so I reached down with my knife and cut it loose.