Solo (20 page)

But I knew it would be wrong to hurry him at this point in his training. We’d be a few minutes late for takeoff, but we could add a few knots to our cruise speed and make it to our area on time.

I instructed Harley to identify himself as “in training” when he first talked to the fighters: “Copper Lead, this is Nail Two Two in training.” That way the fighter pilots would know an instructor was flying in the backseat.

The first strike seemed routine at the outset—it was to cut the trail—except that Harley, as usual, was a bit slow. But not so slow that I had to take over. Our mics, on the ends of thin rods extending from our helmets, were hot, meaning we could talk to each other without holding down the mic button on the throttle grip. (Oxygen masks weren’t needed in the OV-10 because we never flew above ten thousand feet, the minimum altitude for oxygen.) To talk to the fighters, however, he or I would press the mic button under our left thumb.

I was helping Harley decide where to orbit while the fighters put in their ordnance.

“Did you see that at three o’clock?” he said.

“What?”

“I don’t know, unless it’s triple-A.”

There, at our three o’clock position, were ghastly small white puffs of smoke—from flak. And back behind us too. And down there below, those orange Coke bottles, seeming to start not in the jungle but just above it, streaking up one after the other.

“Keep jinking,” I said. I was astonished. The whole world had changed. What I had been hearing about for weeks was happening. Now. And I was in it. In this sudden, new, surreal world, all laws stopped, all courtesies had succumbed to something dark, sad, depressed, hell-bent for grim death. In this sudden world were no manners, no nods of goodwill, no indifference even. Indifference had been sucked from the world, and in its place somebody in the present time, in this living instant from the ground below, was trying to kill me, and I was sitting high, high in the air . . .

With Harley.

But wasn’t there a bubble of protection around the airplane? Wasn’t there a bubble of . . . they wouldn’t hit us, would they? Didn’t I also have a protective shield of some sort around my body, an outline of invisible light that was created by the love of my father and mother, my aunts and uncles, by the home grass and dirt in the yards of the one white frame and the one brick home I knew from my childhood? Wouldn’t I be protected somehow by the love and care of all my elementary school teachers—Mrs. Monday, my first-grade teacher, and Mrs. Arants and
Mrs. Tilly, my second- and third-grade teachers, those women who ruled and taught and protected?

“I have the aircraft,” I said. I wanted to be flying. I turned the aircraft abruptly so that I could see below, see clearly where the fire might be coming from. We were supposed to turn toward rather than away from ground fire in hopes that the gunners would fear we’d spotted them. It didn’t always work; the guns, so well camouflaged, were difficult to spot, even through binoculars.

I pressed the mic button, pushing the throttle forward. I needed more power to maneuver. “Copper Flight,” I said. My spirit was above somewhere, watching my body follow procedures, not cut and run. My mind was somewhere between my spirit and my body, holding on, remembering training, remembering drill and practice. “Nail Two Two. We’re receiving triple-A. Copper Two, you’re cleared in. Safe areas north and northwest.” I tried to sound normal. A main element of our job was to be in control, calm, reassuring. If someone were shot down—and bailed out and parachuted into the jungle—my job would be to talk to him by radio, to reassure him, to remind him to pull in his chute so that it would not be easily seen by enemy troops, to remind him to hide carefully, to move slowly in order to conserve energy, to get him to preserve radio batteries, to indicate enemy troop positions. The search and rescue team (called a SAR)—two World War II A-1E fighters and an HH-53 Jolly Green Giant helicopter—was forty-five minutes away at Nakhon Phanom.

No aircraft was hit by triple-A that day, and we returned home safely. My time as a SAR coordinator would
come later, after triple-A fire had become more routine.

E
ACH EVENING, THE
next day’s flight schedule was posted on a bulletin board in the Nailhole. I was elated when scheduled to fly solo, about one in three of my flights. If I were flying those missions today, I’d be tentative and more afraid. In my recurring dreams of combat flying, I spend time on the flight line looking for my aircraft, and if I find it, I taxi out, only to find there’s an unknown mechanical problem preventing takeoff. Sometimes I become bogged down trying to solve a mathematical problem I’ve never seen before.

But back then, besides lacking a perspective that allowed for the possibility of my own death, my knowledge of procedures and of my airplane was so thorough and practiced that I impressed myself with what I could do, and I knew that when I met up with a flight of fighter-bombers over Laos I would be professional and exact. Though I’d been shot at and felt a slice of emotion I’d never experienced before, I still felt invincible, and I’m sure most other pilots felt the same way.

On these solo FAC missions, I’d often enjoy the extreme solitude that I’ve found only in an airplane. The quiet times flying to and from my sector were almost otherworldly. Tall, billowing clouds, nearby or far away, seemed to offer safety and comfort. Underneath the confidence that I’d survive was a small voice warning of the danger on some future mission, but not this one, and the thirty-minute trips out and back were bookends of refuge.

But the exhilaration I felt over Laos came from more
than being alone in an airplane—it was somehow related to my tasks over Laos, the use of skills learned to keep myself alive. I knew the limits of my aircraft and its systems, and I was confident performing my tasks.

After sighting triple-A fire that first time, sightings came regularly.

One day, City Flight, two single-seat A-7s, Navy fighter-bombers, had arrived over a highly defended intersection of trails. Number two was pulling up out of his bomb pass when I saw the flak around him—white puffs of smoke in the air. The pattern of flak suggested twenty-three-millimeter-gun fire, very dangerous at lower altitudes. Suddenly a stream of white smoke, perhaps fuel, streaked out behind City 2’s left wing. Over the radio came, “Nail, this is City Two. I’m hit.”

“Roger, City Two, you’re trailing smoke.” My voice was too high. I tried to relax my vocal cords. “Head one two zero degrees. There are safe areas all along your route.” I got my voice back down. “Your nearest base is Da Nang. Stand by for the numbers [radio frequencies for Da Nang].” I looked them up and then gave him the radio and navigational frequencies he needed.

After I landed, I called Da Nang by landline. City 2 had landed safely.

O
NE DAY WHILE
being fired at I felt a sudden thud somewhere in the aircraft and thought I’d been hit. All controls and warning lights were normal, but I knew not to take chances. I headed for NKP and declared an emergency so that the fire trucks would be waiting in case aircraft
damage caused landing problems. After landing, maintenance personnel found no sign of damage.

On another occasion, within a few minutes of takeoff my instruments indicated a fire in the right engine. I immediately shut it down, flew back to the base, and landed from a spiraling-down approach used for single-engine landings. No sign of fire was found.

The OV-10 flew nicely on just one engine, but precautions were necessary. It was not unusual at the end of a training mission, while the trainee was flying up front, for me to pull one of the throttles to idle and say, “We’re simulating a lost engine. What do you do?” The student would then recite the part of the emergency procedure that he’d memorized (boldfaced print) and then read the rest.

1.
FAILED ENGINE CONDITION LEVER—FEATHER & FUEL SHUT-OFF.

2. Operative engine power lever—
ADVANCE
, as required.

3. Gear—
UP
.

4. Flaps—
UP
.

5. Maintain minimum single-engine speed or above.

6. Stores—
JETTISON
, as required.

7. Attempt air starts.

8. Failed engine power lever—
FLIGHT IDLE
.

9. Failed engine
FUEL EMERG SHUTOFF—SHUT OFF
.

But the student pilot would not actually feather or shut off fuel to the engine. An idling engine and a feathered engine (which means that the propeller blades are stopped and locked with their flat surfaces turned parallel to the wind flow in order to reduce drag) have similar effects on overall drag. After reciting the entire procedure, he’d fly
back to base and land with one operating engine and one idling engine.

Flying on one engine, the twin-engine OV-10 was lethargic. If it got too slow, a stall was likely, therefore the spiraling-down approach mentioned above was used when landing with only one engine. Instead of approaching the airfield at fifteen hundred feet above the ground, the pilot approached at above twenty-five hundred feet and spiraled down, hitting certain key altitudes so that gravity rather than engine power helped control the approach to landing. Single-engine landings were practiced often, ideally without advancing either throttle beyond idle, thus simulating a double-engine failure.

A
BUDDY
, M
IKE
A
IKEN,
Nail 18, flying near the North Vietnamese border, was jumped and shot at by a couple of North Vietnamese fighter jets. This was unusual. An audiocassette of radio transmissions during the flight became available and I sent it to my father. At the same time, I sent voice recordings from a failed prison raid near Hanoi. All but the bracketed information below was in the letter sent with the tapes.

Daddy, here are 2 [audio]tapes—the first one is of Nail 18 (that’s his call sign)
getting
chased
and
shot
at
by
two
North
Vietnam
jet
fighters
(MIGs).
I’ll try to explain and you can refer to this letter as you listen.

Bandits
—this means enemy fighters.

Cricket
—is the call sign of the U.S. controlling people.

King
—the people who control rescue efforts if they are needed.

The
Barrel
refers to a large section of northern Laos known as the Barrel Roll.

Nail 18 says, “Cricket, this is Nail 18. I just got a tallyho [means “I just saw”] on one of the MIGs up here—he just made a pass on me. I’m taking fire too, Cricket.”

Somebody calls about two blue bandits (MIGs) attacking (these people had picked the MIGs up on radar). Right after this, Nail 18 says he had a couple of MIG-21s and “you might want to advise the boys” (the rescue people).

Nail 18 says, “One just made another pass on me—they’re still up here hosing” (shooting).

Raven 27 (a U.S. pilot) [on a top secret mission . . . these were “forest rangers” stationed in northern Laos] calls and gives his position.

Nail 18 says, “Got one in sight. He’s still circling me. Tallyho on the other one. They’re both down here now. He’s coming in on another pass now.”

Cricket says, “We’ve got a Falcon Flight outbound to you” (this is a flight of two U.S. fighters).

Nail 18: “I’ve got them on both sides of me now.”

Nail 18 heads “due south” for the “high terrain” [mountains].

Nail 18 says he “got rid of all his stores” (means he jettisoned his external fuel tank and rocket containers, etc.) and then says he’s going to RTB (return to base—NKP—because of low fuel).

Cricket says, “They’re back over toward the Fish’s Mouth, so stay low” (he means the MIGs are still in the area—somebody picked them up on radar).

Soon afterward this guy who just happens to be in
the area calls—this is funny—and asks about the warning.

Then Cricket says, “They’re chasing Nail 18 up there.”

The guy comes back, “I’ll be go to hell.”

The last thing Nail 18 says is “apparently about the only damage I got here is the mess in the cockpit.”

(Nail 18 is Lt. Mike Aiken—a good friend of mine.)

[I explained in the letter that Mike came home and landed safely. The tape that I sent of radio transmissions from the prison raid near Hanoi was of the now-famous (among historians of the Vietnam War) Son Tay raid. On the morning of the raid, in November 1970, I was scheduled to fly a solo combat mission. After my preflight check I called tower for a clearance to taxi. I was refused clearance, and I knew something was up. I left the aircraft and went inside. Nobody was flying and nobody knew why. Later we discovered that the prison raid had been taking place near Hanoi, and for security reasons, nobody was flying over Laos.]

OK, Daddy, this next one is of the prison raid and it’s very confusing. I’ll get good information on it later but right now you’ll have to do with what I can give you. Here are the important call signs:

Wildroot
—the people in a helicopter who were controlling the whole thing.

Axle
—people who landed outside the prison camp, I think, one of them landing in the wrong place, as you can tell.

Greenleaf
—these are the people who crash-landed a helicopter in the camp and searched it to rescue the prisoners. When they say “negative items,” that means
they found no prisoners. Later you hear the code word
NILE RICE
, which meant “unsuccessful.”

Blueboy—people inside the camp also. They talk about “blowing the wall.”

Peach
—this was the call sign of the American propeller-driven fighter aircraft. They talk about “taking care of the bridge” and “strafe from the west.”

Later you hear
Blueboy
and
Redwine
loading up into the helicopters after they find no prisoners.