Hugh Mills - Low Level Hell

Sinor rolled in at about 140 to 160 knots, leveled out nose down, and ran the length of the tree line without firing a single rocket.

What the hell? I thought as Sinor sped off to the north. Then Sinor came back with the news. “I’m empty. Most of my ordnance was expended during the convoy ambush and I haven’t reloaded. ARPs are on the way. I’ll keep making dry runs on Charlie to try to keep their heads down. Stay cool.”

So there we were. Down in a rice paddy, the enemy just three hundred yards away, and we had a defanged Cobra! Sinor continued to make runs, with horrendous fire coming up at him from the enemy. But after about three dry passes, Charlie quit shooting at the Cobra.

Two things became obvious to Parker and me as we lay there on the dike half in and half out of that foul rice paddy water: the enemy had wised up to the fact that the gunship was out of ammo, and it wasn’t the gunship they wanted anyway. Those bastards wanted the Loach crew; they wanted us!

Just then Parker yelled, “Lieutenant!” and pointed toward the tree line. I immediately saw two men standing at the edge of the jungle not more than 175 yards to my right front. One man wore a blue shirt, the other dark green. Neither had headgear, but both were carrying AK-47s. They apparently hadn’t seen Parker and me on the dike, and probably thought we were still in or behind the aircraft.

One of the VC pointed toward the bird and the other one let go with a burst of AK fire. As he fired, more AKs from the tree line let go—shooting the hell out of the rice paddy where they thought we were.

Adding to the blanket of fire the AK-47s were sending in, an RPG-7 round suddenly exploded not more than fifteen to twenty yards from us, showering us with mud and foul-smelling water.

“These sons a bitches ain’t kidding,” I shouted into Parker’s ear. “They’re coming after us!”

Parker opened up with his machine gun, and I cut loose with my CAR-15. The two soldiers caught the full blast of our combined fire and were blown backward into the grass at the edge of the tree line.

Parker didn’t let up. He kept spraying the jungle and yelling above the chatter of his M-60, “The bastards aren’t gonna get me… the bastards aren’t gonna get me!”

He soon shot his belt dry, and at the same time his gun jammed. I worked with his weapon trying to clear it, while he crawled back over to the ship to get another belt of ammo.

With a fresh six-foot belt, Parker let go again. I fired three more CAR-15 magazines into the jungle behind where we had dropped the two bad guys. Between bursts, I managed to tell Parker, “If they start coming at us, we’re dropping this stuff and running for it, got me? We’ll run eastbound, toward Thunder Road.” He nodded and kept pumping rounds through the M-60.

One of our mech units over on Thunder Road was probably trying to get across the stream to help us. It made a lot more sense to head toward them, rather than try to hold off a bunch of enemy soldiers if they decided to rush us.

Just then, as if fate had suddenly looked down on us and smiled, a Huey came out of nowhere in a steep, descending spiral and hit a hover right across the corner of the rice paddy, not more than twenty feet from us. I grabbed Parker by the back of the neck. “Come on, Jimbo, let’s get the hell out of here!”

Clutching our weapons, we cut across the corner of the paddy and moved as fast as we could in the thigh-deep water toward the hovering UH-1. The Huey door gunner was shooting like crazy over our heads as I climbed out of the rice paddy and dove into the open right door. Parker was right behind me. I grabbed his M-60 as he struggled to get aboard. The Huey lifted off with me still yanking on his arm and half of his body still flailing outside the aircraft.

Finally, both of us were sitting on the Huey cabin floor, looking at each other, trying to smile. The ship climbed to altitude and headed back to Phu Loi.

We found out that we were in a command and control helicopter belonging to the commander, 3d Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. He had been in the general area and heard Sinor go up on the Guard push. Realizing that an aeroscout crew was on the ground, the CO had ordered in his C and C ship to snatch us up and zip us out of there. He and his crew had sure saved the bacon of a couple of wet, scared aeroscout crewmen that day.

Back at Phu Loi, I learned through operations that after Parker and I were out of there Sinor had called in close air support on the wooded area where the enemy was located. The whole sector from the edge of the Rome-plow to about a quarter mile into the jungle was boxed and worked with fast movers.

Parker’s cut on the chin, though serious, wasn’t as bad as it had looked the day before. He had gone over to the medic when we got back to base and had it stitched.

The next morning, we had a requirement to go back out and assist sweep-up units. A scout-gunship team was needed to help look for blood trails and search for the enemy force that had hit the convoy along Thunder Road.

Realizing that I was going out on the mission, Parker came to me that morning and asked to go. “Look, Lieutenant, I’m fine. I want to go back out there because I’ve got a score to settle with those bastards.”

I understood his feelings, but I knew the regulations: “I can’t let you fly today, it’s not legal. You know as well as I do that stitches are a grounding condition.”

“Come on, sir, I want to go,” he pleaded.

I liked his spunk and I finally gave in. “Get in the aircraft, but if the Old Man finds out about this, it’s my ass.” He gave me a smile as big as his stitched-up chin would allow and headed off to the flight line with his M-60 cradled under his arm.

We flew directly to the ambush site. Coming up on the Rome-plowed area in front of the tree line, we saw that some of our tanks were still there. We could see the tracks where 113s had rolled through, policing up the enemy bodies and looking for any personal gear or documents that could be of help to division intelligence.

To get oriented again, we first made a north-south pass up the west side of the highway, running at about sixty knots and thirty to forty feet off the ground. As I made my turn at the far north end to start back, I saw a VC body lying on the ground. It was behind a large mound of dirt that had obviously been pushed up during the original Rome-plowing of the area. I hauled the Loach around and keyed Parker on the intercom. “Look there, they missed a body. I thought the friendlies picked all those guys up and buried them.”

Holding in a small circle over the body at ten feet, I took a closer look. He had on long blue pants, a long dark green shirt, and Ho Chi Minh sandals. Then I noticed that there was something around his body. Looking closer I could see it was a map case.

I got up on Uniform to report to Sinor, who was my gun cover again that day. “Three One, One Six. I’ve got a dead guy down here with a map case on him. The grunts have missed him. I’m going to go down here and land—it’s wide open, no problem. I’m going down and recover that map case.”

“OK, One Six, roger that. But be careful, he could be booby-trapped.”

I briefed Parker. “When I land, I want you to get out and get that map case. Get the hook out. I’ll put down behind that mound of dirt from the body. You pull the hook over him and stay behind the mound when you pull the body over.”

Parker jumped out with the grappling hook line over his shoulder and his drawn .45 in hand.

“Hey, wait a minute,” I yelled to him over the sound of the idling engine. “Take this with you.” I handed Parker the CAR-15 submachine gun. He reholstered his .45 and disappeared around the corner of the dirt mound, cradling the carbine under his arm.