Hugh Mills - Low Level Hell

I radioed the gun, “Three One, this is One Six. I’ve got a cooking fire at ten o’clock long… about a mile. Must be a turn in the river up there.”

“Ah, roger that, One Six,” Sinor came back. “That’s right up there in the Mushroom stem.”

“All right, Thirty-one, I’m on it. It is a cooking fire and it looks like it’s right on the river. I’m going straight at it.”

Because of the kind of weather that day, I had no reluctance to head right for the fire. I stayed down on the river below the tops of the trees on the bank. I wanted to diffuse the noise of the aircraft and prevent Charlie from seeing us until I got as close as possible. That way I could pop up out of the river and engage the enemy party before any of them could take cover.

I increased power and nudged the Loach up to a hundred knots. I continued straight up the riverbed, flying between the two banks, right on the surface of the water, keeping my eye glued on the plume of smoke.

Getting the distance down to about five hundred yards, I keyed Sinor again. “I know you can’t see me very well, but I’m going to make a run. If we’ve got something we can’t handle, I’ll put out some smoke.”

As we rounded the northeastern edge of the stem of the Mushroom, I was ready with the minigun. Parker was leaning out of the aircraft and ready with his 60.

The enemy cooking fire was beyond the trees ahead of me. I jerked a cyclic climb and popped up out of the river over the trees. As I cleared the nipa palms, the fire was about fifty meters in front of me in a little open area. I snapped a decelerating right-hand skidding turn and looked straight down. There was a large black pot over the fire, and about eight to ten NVA main force troops sitting around waiting for breakfast. Some had weapons lying across their laps; others had them leaning against nearby trees. We had surprised them.

Instantly, Parker opened up with his M-60. I was so momentarily mesmerized watching Jimbo’s tracers, that I hardly noticed when some of the soldiers jerked their AKs out of their laps and began firing full magazines back at us as they jumped to their feet and ran for cover.

For several seconds, it was AK-47 versus M-60 in a vicious, blazing duel. I couldn’t join in the exchange because I was too close to get an angle with the minigun.

We slugged it out for about a minute before I decided it was too hot to stay over the camp site any longer. I punched the intercom and hollered, “Dump a red, Jim!”

Parker, in his usual state of preparedness, already had a red smoke grenade attached to the carry handle of his M-60. He quickly pulled the pin and let the canister go. As I saw the red smoke land in the middle of the camp-fire area, I dumped the nose, pulled power, and keyed Sinor. “Red smoke is out, Thirty-one. Hit the smoke!” I moved off and watched as the Cobra made its run on the target.

Sinor sent pair after pair of rockets crashing into the camp site in what was becoming known as Three One’s “ripple fire maneuver.” On a normal Cobra rocket run, it was common for the gun pilot to shoot a couple of pairs of rocks, break at about a thousand feet, then come around on the target again. Since Sinor didn’t break off his run until about five hundred feet from the ground, the several pairs of rockets that he could pump into a target created a ripple, or salvo, effect that was absolutely devastating.

Standing off a couple of hundred yards, I saw the enemy camp site literally explode with Sinor’s fusillade of 2.75s. Then he broke away very low and punctuated his run with a trail of minigun tracers.

As the smoke and debris cleared, I went back up on Uniform and told Three One to cover me as I went back in for a BDA. In what had been the NVA camp site before Parker and Sinor’s blistering fire, twelve enemy soldiers lay dead in a fifty-meter circle.

I keyed Uniform again. “Good shooting, Thirty-one. Between your good rocks and my crew chief’s 60, we’ve got about a dozen NVA regulars KIA down here.”

“Roger, One Six,” Sinor answered. “If you’ve done everything you need to do here, let’s head on up the river on the VR. We’ll either put the 25th or our ARPs on the KIAs later.”

With that, I turned back toward the Saigon River. Just as I started to drop down on top of the Saigon, Parker keyed his mike and said, in his typical low-key way, “Lieutenant, if we’ve got all those bad guys back there taken care of, how about taking me to the hospital.”

Thunderstruck by his calm, matter-of-fact statement, I jerked my head around. “My God!” I gasped. Parker was slumped over in his jump seat, his M-60 lying across his lap. Both of his hands were clasping his neck in a futile effort to stem the sickening squirt of blood that was streaming through his fingers.

I couldn’t react fast enough. I punched UHF and told Sinor, “Three One, One Six has a crew chief hit… he’s bad. Give me a steer to Doctor Delta and I’m en route direct. Clear my way with arty.”

I heard Sinor shoot the message right back to Lai Khe artillery. “Red Leg, this is Darkhorse Three One. We’ve got a helicopter inbound to Doctor Delta with a wounded crew member on board. Shut down all artillery. I say again, need you to shut down all arty in the vicinity of the Iron T.”

“Roger, Darkhorse,” Lai Khe came back, “artillery is shutting down. However, we do have mortars coming out of fire support base Lorraine going into the northern edge of the Iron T. It will take us a minute to shut them down.”

Sinor then keyed me. “OK, One Six, you heard. Lima kilo arty is shutting down, but it will take a minute or so to stop the mortars. Turn right and give me a couple of orbits.”

“Negative,” I yelled back. “Negative, Three One. I can’t do that. Charlie Echo is hurt too bad. I’m going to take it down on the deck and head straight in!”

I took another fast look at Parker. The blood pumping out of his neck was getting caught up in the slipstream and was splattering all over the gunner’s compartment. I didn’t have much time!

I took the bird down to ground level and picked up Highway 14. It was Rome-plowed, and the wide-open space gave me some standoff from the jungle as we headed east along the western edge of the Iron Triangle. Then I swung right and cut off over the northern edge of the Iron T directly toward Ben Cat, which was just south of the Lai Khe base. I kept looking back at Parker. The way he was bleeding, I didn’t know how I was going to make it in time.

In a couple of minutes, I was closing Lai Khe. I notified Sinor that I was switching off fox mike and going up on Doctor Delta frequency.

“Doctor Delta, Doctor Delta,” I called, “this is Darkhorse One Six inbound. I’ve got a Charlie Echo shot in the neck. I need a surgeon and litter on the pad.” I was doing all the ship could give me, 110 to 115 knots, and passing over Ben Cat.

As I got back an affirmative to land at Lai Khe, I remembered to reach down and safe my minigun. Then I spun the Loach around and dropped it down right in the middle of the PSP pad that formed an H adjacent to the hospital emergency building entrance. A group of soldiers was waiting nearby with a litter.

The instant I touched down, I flicked the emergency shutdown switches, unbuckled, and jumped out of the ship. I wanted to help with Parker, but the medics were right there. They already had him out of the airplane and were jogging his litter toward the receiving hut.

I started to follow, but one of the medics called back to me over his shoulder. “Hey, Lieutenant, we need you to move your aircraft because we’ve got a Huey inbound with a bunch of wounded.”

I continued to watch until Parker was out of sight, then climbed back into the Loach and moved the bird over about seventy-five feet. I ran back to the building where they had taken Parker. The emergency room was just inside the door. Moving quietly into the almost too familiar surroundings, I thought of the other times I had been there. Ameigh. Me. Now Parker.