Hugh Mills - Low Level Hell

“I’m taking fire… I’m taking hits… I’m going down!”

“Son of a bitch,” I hissed.

Then Dean Sinor, Willis’s Cobra, came up. “One Six, One Six, this is Three One. Where in the hell are you?”

“Three One, One Six. I’m just coming off the pad now. What’s happening?”

“OK, One Six, get your ass up here. We just lost One Seven. He’s going down in flames.”

I pushed the Loach to the red line. As I approached the base camp area from the southeast, my radio crackled again. “One Six, where are you now?”

“I’m on the deck heading three one five degrees. Whatcha got?”

“One Seven’s down in the LZ,” Sinor said. “Can you see his smoke?”

I rolled into a low-level right turn and circled the landing zone where we had originally put in the ARP Hueys. At the far northwestern edge of the little patch of open ground, I saw wisps of smoke curling up where Willis had ditched his bird. I didn’t see any flames, but the nose of the bird had been plowed into the ground and the tail boom was sticking almost straight up out of the elephant grass, looking to all the world like a giant lawn dart.

As I passed over the wreck I could see that Rod and Ken Stormer, his crew chief, were both out of the aircraft, busily removing their gear. I motioned that I saw them and would come in and pick them up.

I keyed the intercom and told Perkins my plan. He realized, I’m sure, that we’d be overloaded, with four people in the little Loach plus the weight of the minigun. But he nodded, knowing, as I did, that the OH-6 was a miracle machine. The aircraft could tolerate a gross bending of the rules, when necessary, and still give back nine cents change out of your dime.

So, with Perkins and Willis in the back and Ken Stormer in the front left seat, I made directly for the nearby ARVN base. Jim Bruton could bring Rod a replacement ship from Phu Loi.

Leaving Rod and Ken, I hurried back to the crater area to see how Harris was doing. Four Six told me that if someone wasn’t successful in breaking through to him soon, he’d have to make plans for a night pullout.

We both knew that this would be a last resort. The VC were in their own base camp totally familiar with every inch of the ground. Their knowledge of the area gave them a tremendous advantage during the day, and that same advantage increased dramatically after dark. A night withdrawal would be extremely risky.

Within twenty minutes, Willis and Stormer were back. We circled for about thirty minutes before making another run over the base camp area. With Willis following close behind, I turned in for a fast run, staying on the trees and hitting about seventy knots. As we ripped over the crater, Rod gave me a call.

“Hey, man, maybe they’re asleep or dry down there. Nobody shot at me.”

“Me neither,” I answered. “So let’s slow ‘er down a little, make another pass, and see if anybody’s still kicking.”

This time we came in from a different direction and dropped airspeed to about forty knots. We were almost over Harris’s shell hole when the base camp came alive with ground fire, apparently saved up from our previous high-speed run-by.

I didn’t hear or feel any hits to my ship, but just at that moment, my radio crackled again. “I’m taking fire… I’m taking hits. I’m going down!”

I looked around just in time to see One Seven veer off my tail, start to smoke, and head for the LZ again.

I couldn’t believe it. Willis was going down again. Shot right off my tail and heading back into the landing zone, almost at the same spot as before!,

“You OK, Rod?” I yelled at him. “Can you make it in? Get her down and I’ll run your flanks with the minigun to keep Charlie off your back. Take it easy.”

All I heard back was, “Hurry up, man, those guys mean business. Going down!”

I followed Willis until he was on the ground. He and Stormer jumped out of the ship and began removing their gear while I made runs down both flanks, squirting minigun fire.

As I hosed down the area, I got back on the radio to the C and C ship, telling them I needed their help again. I asked them to make a run into the LZ, pick up Willis and Stormer, and, while they were at it, also pick up Major Moore and Lieutenant Allen.

The C and C ship announced that they’d be right in. “OK, Two Niner,” I said. “Take everybody back to Phu Loi. And tell Willis, if he and Stormer aren’t banged up too bad, to get into another Loach and get the hell back up here as soon as they can.”

With Willis gone we still had One Three, One Zero, me, and four Cobras left on the scene. But none of us could figure out how to get the ARPs out of the mess they were in. It was about four o’clock in the afternoon and Four Six’s spot was getting tighter all the time.

After circling for a while, I got back in touch with the C and C ship and Major Moore. By that time, they were nearing Phu Loi. “Darkhorse Six, this is One Six. The day’s going to run out on us, Major, if we don’t get some help to these guys while there’s still some light left. Is there any armor nearby that you can get to bust into them?”

Six came back, “OK, One Six, hang onto the help you’ve got up there now. Keep Four Six covered the best you can. I’ll get some armor coming.”

A few minutes later Six came back up on the radio. “All right, One Six, we’ve got armor coming. They’re on their way now and will be there right away. They’re coming down the road from Dau Tieng and you need to send someone over to pick them up and guide them into the base camp.”

As I rogered Six’s transmission, I looked over and saw Willis, now in Loach number three , burning back in on the trees hell-bent for election. After today, Willis would really be known as an “enemy ace.” I radioed him. “One Seven, I need you to get over to the Dau Tieng Road and pick up the armor column. They’re close by now and need you to lead them into the base camp area. Be sure they know who they’re shooting at when they come in down there. Our friendlies have already had their share of shit for today.”

In just a few minutes, Rod returned with the mechanized infantry company and an attached platoon of M-48A3 tanks, leading them into the southern end of the base area. In the meantime, we had marked the enemy positions the best we could with red smoke so that the tankers would know where to shoot.

The very second the armored column entered the base camp, all hell broke loose. The relief column began to take horrendous fire from the bunkers. Willis and I were over the ARP crater trying to mark the friendlies when enemy fire seemed to explode from the base camp into one huge flaming ball. Rounds were flying everywhere. I could hear them hitting my ship as I goosed the Loach to get out of there. But not before I heard the now-familiar radio call.

“Ah, sheeit! I’m taking hits… I’m going down!”

“Goddamnl” I screamed. “Rod again!” Down he went. With smoke trailing.

Bob Davis came up on the radio as he watched Willis’s third OH-6 pile into the LZ. “Why don’t you just leave the son of a bitch down there? We haven’t got any more aircraft for him to crash!”

I tried to take over guiding the tankers into the camp, but I couldn’t get my FM radio to work. So, with Willis down and my FM not transmitting or receiving, I fed instructions to the C and C ship over UHF, who, in turn, relayed them to the tankers below.

In seconds, the armor began blowing the hell out of everything. They literally blasted their way into the base camp to link up with the beleaguered ARPs in the shell hole. As they moved forward, the M-48s depressed their main guns and stuck their muzzles point blank into the bunkers’ firing ports, then pulled the triggers. The resulting canister round explosions blew the tops off the bunkers, sent debris showering everywhere, and completely vaporized everything within.