Hugh Mills - Low Level Hell

“OK, we’re going back and take another look.”

As I whipped a hard one eighty, I remembered something that other aeroscouts had taught me earlier, something that had held true through my own scouting experience. When discovered in the field, the bad guys had a tendency to run for cover at the base of the largest, tallest tree in the area. Then they’d stay put until the danger was past.

With that little piece of G-2 in my mind, I returned to the spot where Parker had reported seeing the people. Then I decelerated and hovered over the biggest tree I could find. I looked down the trunk to the ground and there were four VC faces staring directly up at me. I jerked an armful of collective. The tail jumped up and the nose dipped as I hauled out.

Parker yelled, “You see ‘em? You see ‘em?”

“I see ‘em. Did you see any weapons? They didn’t shoot.”

“I couldn’t tell, it was too quick. I don’t think I saw any guns,” Parker answered.

My VHF blared as Sinor came up. “What’s going on, One Six? I saw your tail kick… you OK?”

“Bad guys, Three One. We’ve got four enemy troops at the base of that tall tree. They didn’t shoot. I’m going back in to check it again.”

It didn’t occur to me that I may have found just the tip of the iceberg. That motorized junk and the half dozen or so sampans on the riverbank should have instantly told me that a lot of people could have landed from those boats. More than the four VC at the base of that tree.

. But in the urgency of the moment, I didn’t think about that. I keyed Parker. “OK, Jimbo, we’re going back in. I’m going to slow down so we can check it out. Be ready with your M-60 because I’m going to see if I can get them to make a move.”

Keeping an eye on the tall tree, I decelerated and slid the ship into a hover on its right side just over the top branches. Then I looked down the tree trunk to see if the four brown faces were still there. They were, and obviously more frustrated this time by my second interruption to their scheduled morning activities. All four whipped up their AKs and opened up. Parker’s M-60 chattered back instantly. I saw his rounds hit and people fall.

Then fire erupted from the entire rubber plantation. It looked like a hundred or more muzzle flashes, all aimed at me. So that’s where all the people from those boats were.

I jerked the Loach up again. It was a wonder I didn’t yank the collective right out of its socket. As the little bird instantly responded, I shouted to Sinor, “We’re taking fire from directly beneath us… from our six o’clock now, mark, mark. They’re in the rubber… hit the rubber. Shit!… there must be a hundred or more in there… hit the rubber!”

“Saw you kick it, One Six. We’re rolling,” Sinor answered.

I looked over my right shoulder to see if Parker was OK. He was hanging outside the aircraft, shooting his M-60 down under the tail boom. Then I looked for the Cobra. Sinor had already completed his first run on the target and was peeling away from the rubber to come around again for another pass.

He came back on the radio, “How many people down there, One Six? Are you hit? Are you OK?”

“I can’t tell if we took any hits, so we must be OK. There are at least fifty to a hundred bad guys down there in the rubber.”

“We concur, One Six,” Three One came back. “We saw at least that many muzzle flashes.”

“You know what I’m thinking, Thirty-one? We’ve got an awful lot of unfriendly people down there, and I think we better put a cap on them to keep them from moving any farther north. I’ll bet they’re heading on up to pay a little surprise visit on Mahone.”

“Roger that,” Sinor acknowledged. “If we don’t put a collar on ‘em, they’ll didi the area.”

“Right, Thirty-one. We need to hold them in the rubber until the ARPs can get on the ground; otherwise, we’ll never find them all together again.”

“OK, One Six,” Sinor said, “I’ll call the guys at Mahone and tell them that they’ve got some uninvited guests coming up on ‘em from the south. I suspect my rockets have already woken them up.”

Putting a cap on the area meant that the scout got down as low as he could, repeating fast orbits, and doing all he could to not allow the enemy to slip out of the noose. As I started that tactic, I heard Sinor radio FSB Mahone to bring them up to speed on what we had found.

“Fearless Seven Seven,” he called, “this is Darkhorse Three One. You’ve got an estimated fifty to one hundred enemy troops in the rubber to your southeast, presumably moving northwest on your location. Do you have observation posts or ambush patrols out in that area? If not, we’re calling in Dau Tieng arty to do some shooting in the plantation.”

“OK, Darkhorse Three One, this is Fearless Seven Seven. We have no friendlies in the rubber… no friendlies outside the base in that area. It’s a go on Delta Tango arty.”

With that, we headed for altitude and Sinor radioed Red Leg to line up division artillery for the fire mission. It wasn’t long before 105mm HE rounds began thundering into the rubber area, and continued pounding for almost fifteen minutes.

When the smoke and debris began to clear, I headed down again to make an assessment. At the same time, I overheard the radio conversations of the slicks that were getting off from Phu Loi—the ARPs would be on station soon.

Back down at treetop level, I saw the results of the heavy tube artillery barrage. Dirt, debris, and dust covered everything. The artillery rounds had uprooted trees, splintered the wood, and left gaping shell holes and general devastation throughout the rubber. I wondered if many enemy troops had lived through that. Some of them apparently did, because I could see numerous blood trails and drag marks through the artillery dust.

Following one of the trails, I came upon three of the enemy moving slowly through the rubber. They were dragging a couple of bodies. Although dazed from the bombardment, they raised their weapons as our ship came into view. Parker shortstopped the threat by quickly cutting them down with one sustained burst from his M-60.

I was now running low on fuel, so I radioed Sinor to scramble another scout team from Phu Loi. I had just enough gas to hang on until we got the ARPs down. They arrived a few minutes later and I put them down into an LZ about two hundred yards from the enemy boats.

Bob Davis (One Three) was my replacement scout and he came on the scene just after the ARPs landed. He fell in on my six o’clock and we flew over the area while I briefed him on the situation. That freed me up to head on over to Dau Tieng for fuel and rearming.

That refueling trip was only the first of the day. I gassed, rearmed, went back to the rubber and relieved Davis. Then he did the same. Back and forth, back and forth we went, trying to keep a tight lid on the contact area and prevent the enemy troops from escaping.

Finally, the day lapsed into very late afternoon. It was Davis’s turn back at Dau Tieng while I orbited over the ARPs, covering their return to the LZ. They had assaulted and secured the enemy boats, and the slicks were waiting to take them back to home plate.

Suddenly on one of my circles I caught a glimpse of movement over on the ARP’s right flank. I immediately flared that way to see what had caught my attention. It was a group of about fifteen enemy soldiers, about forty yards out from the ARPs and moving laterally with our rifle platoon. They were obviously trying to make an undetected escape from the rubber by moving along with the ARPs.

The enemy hadn’t seen me yet. I had moved in right on top of the trees and was looking at them at an angle through the treetops. I slowed, turned the ship, and dropped the nose to put my minigun square on their column. I pulled the trigger—on through the first detent to a full four thousand rounds a minute—and cut the full burst right across them. Many of the soldiers were blasted down instantly. Others dropped as I turned the Loach so Parker’s M-60 could open up.