Hugh Mills - Low Level Hell

When I saw the red smoke beginning to come up from the jungle floor, I accelerated eastbound back toward the Thi Tinh and came up to Sinor. “OK, Three One, smoke is out. Hit the red smoke now. I’m clear, One Six is clear to the east.”

I no sooner got the words out of my mouth when Sinor rolled on the smoke and worked his rocks and minigun all the way down the trail.

Watching him hose down the area almost made me forget that I was getting low on fuel and ammo. So I came up to Sinor again. “When you get a chance, Three One, crank the other team in here and I’ll hold for One Seven to brief him on the contact area when he gets here.”

Willis’s Cobra (Carriss), being much faster than the OH-6, got to the scene first and pulled into an orbit behind Sinor. A few minutes later, along came Willis. He was down very low, scraping the landscape as he cruised in leisurely from the west. He had apparently flown up to the contact point right down on the deck, all the way from Dau Tieng. That was Romeo Whiskey for you.

Once on the scene, Willis pulled up to where I was orbiting at about eight hundred feet, then we both headed back down low again with One Seven tight on my tail. I started briefing Willis as soon as we bottomed out over the area where we first discovered and hit the column. “OK, One Seven,” I said, “you see the east-west trail? It’s just on the west side of the Thi Tinh where Thirty-one’s rocks have impacted.”

Willis gave me back two short squelches on his transmit button, so I continued: “OK, you’ll want to work in this area east to west along the trail. This is where we hit ten to twelve Victor Charlies westbound on the trail. Door gunner engaged with mike 60.1 engaged with mini-gun, Cobra engaged with rocks. Negative knowledge of results, no return fire.”

Willis rogered again and then I said, “We’re bingo on fuel, One Seven. I’m going to cut a chogie on over to Delta Tango to refuel and rearm, then I’ll be back out to join you. See ya.” Sinor elected to stay over the contact area with Carriss since his snake was not low on fuel or ammo.

Parker and I had just landed at Dau Tieng and taken on some fuel. Parker was out of the airplane getting ammo. As I sat waiting in the idling Loach with radios up, Sinor’s voice suddenly popped on UHF. “I’m in hot, One Seven… I’m in hot!”

Realizing that enemy contact had apparently been reestablished back on the Thi Tinh, I motioned to Parker to haul ass and get back on board ASAP. I asked the tower for clearance and we were on our way.

As I cleared the Dau Tieng fence and rearmed the minigun, I flipped the radio back to troop Uniform so I could hear all the transmissions from the guys at the Thi Tinh.

The first thing I heard was Carriss yelling, “Turn left, turn left, One Seven… now straight ahead… straight ahead… there’s an open area straight in front of you. Straight ahead of you, One Seven.”

I immediately switched to Victor and transmitted to Sinor. “Three One, this is One Six. I’m just off Delta Tango. What’s happening?”

“One Six, Three One. Bust your ass, bust your ass back here. One Seven is going down. One Seven’s been hit and is going down!”

I was flying down so low that I couldn’t pick up all of the conversations, but I did hear Willis say, “I think I can make it to the open area.” That was the last thing I heard from him.

I climbed up to about five hundred feet and headed straight for the Cobra, just in time to hear Sinor say, “OK, he’s down. The crew’s out of the little bird and they both look OK. Looks like they both made it down OK.”

I needed to get on top of Willis as quickly as I could to cover him. “OK, Three One, One Six is in hot. I’m on the trees. Have you got me in sight?”

Sinor rogered. “OK, One Six, I’ve got you coming in from the northwest. Crew looks OK, but I don’t know how they’re fixed for Victor Charlies.”

I keyed Parker on the intercom. “Keep your eyes peeled, Jimbo, we’ve got a crew down. Stormer and Willis are on the ground. Watch your gun so you don’t accidentally shoot our friendlies.”

I made a low pass, turned right, and did a three sixty on top of the crash site. I could see Willis and Stormer lying flat on the ground looking up at me. Willis had his PRC-90 emergency radio in his hand and I cranked in on the emergency Uniform frequency just in time to hear him say, “One Six, this is One Seven. How do you hear me?”

“OK, One Seven,” I answered. “I’ve got you loud and clear. Are you OK, buddy?”

“Yea, man,” he came back, “I’m OK, but the bastards are right over there. They’re right over there, man.” Willis pointed to the tree line over to his west. “They shot the hell out of me, Hubie!”

I hated it when anybody called me Hubie, but I guessed that this wasn’t a good time to discuss it with Rod.

“Are you hurt?” I asked again.

“Negative,” Willis answered. “Stormer’s back hurts, but he’s OK. The dinks are real close, One Six. I can hear them. They’re real close, I shit you not!”

I thought for a second. “OK, One Seven, put your head down. I’m going to come around hot and hose down that tree line on your west. You and Stormer keep your heads down.”

I pulled the Loach around to the west, ran my gun stop to four thousand rounds per minute, and kept kicking right and left pedal, spraying minigun all the way down the tree line.

As I turned back to make another pass, I told Parker to get out a red smoke and let it fly. Then I came up to Sinor in the Cobra. “Hey, Three One, we’ve got a covey of bad guys in the tree line on the west side of the downed bird. When you see the red smoke, hit it! Don’t worry about me, I’ll be clear to the east.”

“OK, you guys,” I said to Willis, “stay low to the ground and keep your heads down. Rockets are on the way. You copy?” Then I jerked my tail up and accelerated eastbound.

Both Carriss and Sinor hit the tree line, and I could hear their rockets as I beat it out of the area. After about three gun passes I went back in to check things out. I circled around and hovered directly over Willis, Stormer, and the shot-up bird. At about thirty feet off the ground, I could look right into Willis’s face. Normally, no matter what, Willis was always grinning. But there wasn’t any grin on his face now. I think, for the first time since I had known him, he was actually scared shitless.

I could understand why. An aircrew downed in the middle of nowhere, with an enemy firefight going on, is totally out of its element. A scout pilot and gunner are used to having the advantage of height—being able to look down to see and shoot an enemy. They were not prepared to be in the middle of elephant grass over their heads, not able to see more than a couple of feet.

As I orbited tightly on top of them, I asked Willis, “What’s it looking like down there now, One Seven?”

Rod looked up at me as he spoke back over his emergency radio. “Looks rough, One Six. There are bad guys all around us. I got gook chatter all around, a lot of voices on the west… no… on the east… ah, shit, I don’t know… maybe on”the south of us, too. They’re shooting the hell out of things. Get us out of here, One Six!”

I got on Uniform to Sinor. “Hey, Thirty-one, Charlie’s throwing everything but the kitchen step stool at One Seven. What’s the ETA on the ARPs?”

“They’re loading up now,” Sinor came back. “They were on strip alert for another mission. It’ll be another ten to fifteen minutes before they can make it up here.”

I moved my bird out of the fire zone and thought for a second. “OK, Three One, they’re hearing bad people all around them down there. We don’t have time to wait. Have we got anybody in the neighborhood who can get in here now and pick up the crew?”