Copyright 1999 Richard Allen Strong * StrongWare Home Page
By Major Rich Strong (AFRet)
NOTE: References and footnote materials are at the end of the paper; in the text, they are numbered in sequence and denoted by brackets, such as [1]. You can see and hear the USAF version at *Sparrow Hawks
These are recollections and thoughts of one who was there when the White House decided to have the military intervene in the Vietnamese situation in 1966 and attempt to interdict the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos on a clandestine basis. These recollections may seem critical and they are intended to be so. However, the author feels that most of the other available literature glosses over many of the problems that may still be encountered in the future, that is, why it was 'the lost war'. The recollections form a conclusion that the whole action was a conglomeration of oversights and huge mistakes [10] that was based on an underlying clandestine greed for the vast oil resources in that area [1][2][3][4][5], that is, why the war 'never was'. Otherwise, one must believe that the world oil barons were unaware of the oilfields.
The recollections are primarily concerned with activities of the 23rd Tactical Air Support Squadron, or TASS, based in northeast Thailand. More information is available at
*Thailand-Laos-Cambodia, TLC Brotherhood and * FAC Association
In the early days, the main problems may be said to have been centered around a general lack of willingness to declare a full-scale war on the part of the administration and a lack of preparedness on the part of the military to fight a limited war. The lack led to limitations on: 1.) human resources; 2.) equipment; and 3.) operations. The recollections that follow will generally follow a pattern of grouping into the three categories, all set against a foundation of the political situation, the scenario.
THE SCENARIO
The reader should appreciate that the climate in Southeast Asia was a matter of constant high temperatures, often over 100 degrees, marked only by dry and wet monsoon seasons. Monsoon weather effectively prevented any air actions, since the rain was very heavy and constant for months at a time, usually during autumn. This was aggravated by Operation POPEYE, when cloud-seeding was used in an attempt to wash out the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.
When Bob Hope did his show at Nakhon Phenom Royal Thai Air Base, A.K.A. "Naked Fanny" or simply "NKP", in the early 1970s, he quipped,
"This place is so secret, the planes have to land backwards!"
The author finished a mid-tour Rest and Recreation Leave, R&R, in Hawaii in mid-tour and tried to get a hop back to Thailand. The Air Force travel clerk told him that flights were reserved "for our fighting men in Vietnam, not for tourists".
NKP was originally set up as a base for rescue operations with older twin-rotor "Pedro" helicopters from Kaman. The base had a radar station, INVERT, to assist. Rescue operations were directed by a C-130 with the call sign of "Crown". All were part of the 505th Tactical Control Group. The radar was of little use to the FACs, other than for vectoring fighters to the general location of the FACs, since INVERT could not 'see' the small airplanes flying at low altitudes, often less than the prescribed 1500 feet, at distances of almost a hundred miles. FAC navigation was strictly by map reading and pilotage and dead reckoning, since there were no radio aids[11]. The EC-130 Airborne Command Post Center, "Cricket", ostensibly coordinated the fighters and also vectored them to the FACs.
The author was also involved in several brief operations where he flew from bases in Laos. These were characterized by secrecy that involved having frames on the sides of the O-1s fuselage to hold interchangeable insignia plates for USAF, Vietnam, or Laos, the latter being used during the operations. Civilian clothes were the uniform of the day. Status of pilots was questionable and sometimes referred to as being with the Agency for International Development, AID. Presumably this was due to the White House declaration to the effect that the U.S. did not have any ground troops in Laos.
One should appreciate that the main reason for stationing the organization in Thailand, rather than in South Vietnam, was that the safety and security provided there was much better. The author, while stationed in the Mekong Delta area during early 1966, was part of a group that was attacked by guerrillas. The airstrip, with Air Force O-1s, Vietnamese L-19s, and U.S. Navy OE-1s, was secured by a company of Vietnamese Rangers. On one occasion, a staff officer visited from Saigon; he insisted that we do a dawn patrol, despite our advice that visibility in the morning haze made reconnaissance impossible. As we mounted the jeeps for the trip to the airstrip, we all loaded ammo into our M-16s. When he asked why we did so, we informed him that the route went by a cemetery where the gravestones made for a perfect ambush site. On another occasion, while the author was enjoying refreshments in the upstairs "club", the bar was raked by VC automatic weapons fire.
The only suspicious event at NKP was that a Nimrod B-26 was shot down while landing. Aerial inspection convinced the author that there was at least one gunpit on the landing approach path. However, it was not politic to mention that Thailand was being infiltrated by Communist Intruders, "CIs".
As an indication of the impact of politics on the overall operation, consider the following. The author was first stationed during the winter of 1966 in South Vietnam in the delta region formed by the Mekong River. Since the Mekong meandered from China through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, and South Vietnam, it was considered by laws and treaties to be an international, that is, neutral, waterway. Personal observation showed that several ocean-going freighters habitually were on the waterway, ostensibly run aground by the tidal shifting. No airstrikes could be put on the ships, though it was obvious that they were supplying the Viet Cong guerillas. The author was subsequently stationed at bases upriver from the delta, in Thailand, then in Laos. Later, his lead pilot, known for his curiosity, took him on a tour of the Mekong to the headwaters in Red China!
Politics also provided for a bombing halt in the autumn. The North Vietnamese took advantage of this and stockpiled supplies on their side of the Laotian border, ready to be loaded for the nightly delivery runs. The author reasoned that, since the fighters rarely knew where they were precisely, they wouldn't know whether they were dropping in Laos or North Vietnam. The irresistible stockpiles were struck and reported as being in Laos. Later, there were murmurings about a court martial, but nothing was official.
It seems that something must be said about the effect of the secrecy on the overall operation and the training of intelligence officers. The best way might be to simply point out that there appeared to be a great amount of fragmentation and disconnections of intelligence information. Although it was suspected that reconnaissance was being performed by Army OV-1 Mohawks, Air Force RF-101 Voodoos, NRO satellites, CIA U-2s, and various ground teams, there was little being passed on to the FACs or from them. On one occasion, some staff officers visited from the headquarters of the 7/13th Air Force and told us that they did not have the time to read our Daily Intelligence Summaries, DISUMs. We listened and thought of the blood being shed to produce the reports that were left unread and unused. The same 'strap-hangers' also told us that we were requesting the wrong bomb-fuzing timing of a tenth of a second and that such fuzing would only result in a deep hole in the ground, whereas they favored the one-hundredth of a second delay that would shower fragments above the ground. We patiently explained that there no personnel above ground, other than the expert gunners, during airstrikes and that our purpose was to create deep holes in The Trail.
The visitors also informed us that, although we were there to keep the supplies from flowing south, we were mainly in the Air Force, so, if we were in a situation where we had a choice of using either Air Force or Navy fighters to hit trucks, we were to remember that we were in the Air Force. Much of the war was between the services.
Photo intelligence was also lacking. On at least two occasions, the photos provided by headquarters for striking targets showed nothing but jungle, with no landmarks whatsoever. On another occasion, the maps provided showed nothing more than a notation that the area had not been mapped. The author used a hand-held Polaroid camera to image targets. They were useful on one occasion when trucks were found and struck. The FACs ran low on fuel and returned to NKP, then gave the photos to the next pair to find the target.
HUMAN RESOURCES
The secrecy may have had an adverse impact on the careers of those involved. The Commander, LtCol Johnston, once told us that all of the NKP FACs were hand-picked and, in his opinion, "Outstanding" as in Officer Effectiveness Report, OER, jargon. However, for some unknown reason, there were no OERs written. The lack of the reports led to pass-overs for most of the FACs, and in effect, ended their careers in the Air Force.
Some reports indicate that the average age of Air Force pilots in Southeast Asia was around 36, in contrast to popular conceptions of twenty-year-olds. The NKP FACs seemed to match the reports; the author became 36 during his tour.
For the author, the first sight of NKP was "déjà vu all over again". He had been a Plane Captain on the Navy version of the Sandy, the AD-1Q radar countermeasures aircraft. While attending the University of Michigan for Aeronautical Engineering, he flew Gooney Birds on week-ends. While he was awaiting a Pilot Training Class in 1955, he worked on the Army L-19 liaison version of the O-1 at the main Army liaison and helicopter training base.
Even with this background, it must be said that the human resources available were, at best, untrained for the mission. The author was assigned from a program office for communication satellites, following tours in Air Training Command. Only a brief course of instruction was given to them at a base in northwest Florida; the course was based on traditional Forward Air Control, that is, Close Air Support, CAS, controlling air strikes to support ground operations. There was no training for the interdiction mission nor for the surveillance mission that were the main jobs to be done on The Trail. Since there was no classical "Forward Edge of the Battle Area", or "FEBA", we made up another acronym to describe our mission of Strike Control and Reconnaissance, "SCAR".
FACs were identified in one of two categories:
Class A FACs were usually preferred and assigned to do with ground units, especially U.S. forces. Interdiction was usually done with Class B FACs. Many of the FACs that the author flew with were assigned from the Air Force Systems Command and similar non-combat units and so had little combat experience.
One may speculate that the lack of qualified FACs was due to the general policy on the part of Air Force and Army decision-makers that emphasis was to be placed on resources to counter the Soviet threat. Strategic bombers and fighters were obviously deemed to be more important than the CAS mission and interdiction missions. One might review the various Air Power demonstrations to assess the emphasis on the role of FACs, i.e., none.
The most obvious difference was seen in the simple fact that Class B FACs had little or no knowledge of any of the wide variety of ordnance that the various fighters used. It was necessary for them to learn on the job, or at the bar in the evening. There was no descriptive literature available at the base. One can imagine the confusion and inefficiency that resulted during airstrikes, when the attacker informed the FAC that he had "A-1s" or "High Drags" or such. The FAC had no idea of what they were talking about in terms of effects, accuracy, or general configuration and had to either ask or wait and see what happened when the ordnance hit the ground. More later about this in the section on Equipment. Likewise, the few Class A FACs in the 23rd were able to judge winds and give the fighters aiming corrections in mils, an art that was beyond the Class B FACs' abilities.
Many of the pilots were "jet jockeys" who had difficulty learning to fly the old-fashioned piston-and-propeller airplane with "the nose wheel at the wrong end". Niceties such as propeller pitch controls were available only at NKP, where fuel economy for the long commute to and from The Trail was of high concern. The author had a background in Piper Cubs and Aeronca Champions, as well as taxiing Navy planes. He was quite amused at the antics of the jet jockeys as they circled while taxiing. He also had thousands of hours in piston engine aircraft where cruise control, a combination of fuel mixture control, propeller speed, engine speed, and aircraft speed and configuration, was emphasized to conserve on fuel.
Many, if not most, of the fighter pilots were relatively untrained for the interdiction role with intense anti-aircraft artillery and small-arms gunfire. Bombing accuracy was generally poor. On one occasion, the author FACed four fighters against an open road with zero AAA, with no hits anywhere near the road. On another occasion, where the road was on a hillside, the fighter lead over-ruled the FAC's directions to bomb above the road to create a landslide and chose to bomb along the road. He tried to lecture the FAC about Gaussian distribution patterns; however, the theory failed in practice and there were no hits.
On another occasion, four Navy fighters were being FACed on the road. As if they were on the bombing range in the desert stateside, they dutifully set up a standard run as if they were in a landing pattern. The third plane coming down the slot to the target literally disintegrated under the hail of gunfire. The author does not know whether or not the fighter pilots were briefed on the deadly intensity of concentrated fire from a complex of six 4-barrel 23 millimeter ZSU-23 cannons. The ABCCC folks sometimes seemed unaware of the threat and directed that airstrikes be put against AAA sites. The FACs knew full well that such attacks would be deadly and flatly refused to control them. Experienced pilots flying F-100s in South Vietnam used the "wheel" attack pattern whereby the planes fly an orbit around the target and attack from random directions.
No discussion of spotting would be complete without consideration of the specifics of spotting. For spotting trucks on The Trail, a unique technique was called "getting the eye". This referred to the highly specialized method whereby the spotter learned all about the natural flora and foliage so as to know exactly what looked natural, then, by the process of elimination, learned to see what was un-natural. This often required weeks of acclimatizing and several frustrating flights with the old heads. In the author's case, it was a matter of combining the usual seeing with "The Eye", plus some Extra-Sensory Perception. Using The Eye required staring for a period of several seconds, which then required slow flying.(For more about this, go to /psisig.)
The author's concentration on spotting and hitting targets almost did him in. On one occasion, he attempted to see sideways beneath the trees and, at the last split-second, looked forward to see a huge rock outcropping directly in his path. Only a maximum-performance climb saved him. This kind of climb also served him on another occasion. A truck was found in the open and the bombloads of three flights of four fighters were expended on it to no avail. The chagrined FAC was determined to disable the truck with his remaining rockets and put them into the truck's radiator from a height of about 50 feet. Then he saw the 300 foot tall trees in his path and executed the climb. Target fascination was not in the FAC curriculum, but it would have been a useful training tool.
Survival training was provided to all of the pilots assigned to Southeast Asia combat. Unfortunately, in the author's case, this consisted of Winter Survival Training in the Rocky Mountains in January and February. The skill acquired in snowshoes was of little use in the jungle. The author was informed that the Jungle Survival Training in the Philippines was not available. This situation had a significant adverse impact on morale, since all of the missions involved a risk of survival in the rain forests. The author augmented his personal armament of an M-16 and USAF .38 caliber revolver with a Smith & Wesson .45 caliber revolver and hand grenades.
The rain forest, per se, posed a unique problem. The mahogany and teak rain forests were made of huge trees that towered hundreds of feet. Those who were unfamiliar with the growth and relied on their memories of stateside trees suffered optical delusions. On one occasion, a fighter pilot called to say that he had spotted a group of crates near a grove. The FAC hurried to the site, only to find a village of regular-sized houses and informed the fighter pilot that the "crates" and trees were about three times the size he expected.
Three anecdotes that reflect on both the O-1F and the author as a system may give the reader insights. While in training, the author, being fresh from a course in Flight Test, explored the performance envelope by decreasing airspeed until his plane was literally falling straight down. He was surprised to find that flight control was adequate. While returning from The Trail on a boring day, he performed a slow roll, much to the surprise of his wingman, who worried that he had been hit by anti-aircraft artillery, "Triple A". Lastly, while trying to out-climb the huge tropical clouds over The Trail, he recalled an anecdote by Eddie Rickenbacker. The Ace wrote that he had gotten his Spad up over 20,000 feet. The author reasoned that the O-1 had the same weight and power as a Spad and so climbed until he, too, had topped 20,000 feet. Nevertheless, the clouds were higher and he penetrated the clouds all the way down to the clear air under the clouds.
One must expand the discussion of Human Resources to include the all-important troops who maintained the airplanes and provided all of the other essential support. One can imagine their situations were similar to those of the pilots.
This paper will not go into the human interest or family relations aspects of the those in the military as regards trying to explain the mission, location, or anything else that was security classified. Suffice to say that the non-air-conditioned huts and noise from electrical generators were debilitating; the author lost about 30 pounds during his tour. The isolation was broken only by a monthly 3-day trip to Bangkok and rare trips to other FAC bases. The author's primary diversion was designing airplanes. (*Dragon)
THE EQUIPMENT
The aircraft stationed at NKP were a collection of obsolete prop planes from bygone days and a few rescue helicopters. The ramp held a couple of dozen Cessna observation planes, ‘O-1Fs’, flown by Forward Air Controllers, known all over Southeast Asia as "FACs". There were also a few Douglas A-1 "Sandys" who escorted the rescue helicopters, the "Jolly Greens". Occasionally, a Douglas EC-47 "Gooney Bird" stopped by. There were several versions, including a "Spooky" for electronic reconnaissance.
Later on, in 1966, some North American A-26 attack planes arrived, "Nimrods", with the Air Commandos. The A-26s had been remanufactured and re-designated as B-26s, where the ‘B’ stood for Bomber; however, since the diplomatic situation precluded stationing Bombers in Thailand, they were re-designated as "Attack" planes, A-26s. Modern Martin B-57 jets (originally British Canberras) were sometimes available from their bases in the Philippines. No strike aircraft were dedicated to attacking The Trail.
The O-1s were usually flown in an overweight condition, due to the added weight of the rocket racks. The high temperatures and humidity also degraded engine performance significantly.
When the author first arrived at NKP, the O-1s were painted in various camouflage schemes. The reader can imagine what happened when a FAC would call the fighters and ask if they could see the little camouflaged plane from two or three miles up against a jungle background. On one occasion, the FAC was rammed by a fighter. The solution was to re-paint the aircraft in a gray color with white wings.
The popular stories about South Vietnam FACs carrying corks for sealing small bullet holes in the fuel tanks were not accepted well at NKP. Instead, self-sealing tanks were put in; however, the modification did decrease the room for fuel. There was no armor on the plane. Contrariwise, the pilot sat surrounded by fuel near his head, a battery between his feet, and grenades hanging at his back. The radio under the seat offered some protection and the author was once handed a bullet by his crew chief that had lodged there. The other hits on his plane were a single bullet in the tail while in the delta and a 23 mm shell beneath the door on The Trail. The author only wore his parachute on one occasion, when he had a headquarters strap-hanger riding along as passenger, preferring the added freedom of movement for spotting. The thought of being shot at while helpless under a parachute was over-ridden by the thought of riding the O-1 down to the ground to a safer landing.
The engines were maintained with regular non-detergent oil. On one occasion, the author was sent to another base. He had the regular oil aboard and admonished the ground crew to use it. The next morning, he was chagrined when the crew told him that they had saved his oil and used their detergent oil instead. The next week, the author was working airstrikes on The Trail and pulled off a marking pass only to find that the propeller pitch control was stuck in the low r.p.m. mode. Later, he found that the engine oil was also used for controlling the propeller and that the detergent oil had loosened the dirt that had accumulated for years and deposited it in the pro controls. Sweating it out during the return trip at barely flying speed, he arrived at NKP only to find that the plane wouldn't slow down as usual. He side-slipped the bird in to land. After parking, he was accosted by the Flying Safety Officer and chewed out for doing acrobatics.
The O-1's armament was four marking rockets with white phosphorus warheads. On a rare occasion, these were in short supply, so High Explosive Anti-Tank ("HEAT") rockets were used. With the use of the HEAT rounds, groundfire increased, so their use was abruptly terminated. The smoke grenades were used on rare occasions.
The aiming system for the rockets was primitive and ineffective at the beginning. Calibration procedures consisted of inserting brooms into the rocket tubes on either side of the plane, under the wings. A string was then run between the brooms and a grease-pencil mark was made on the windshield where the string crossed over it. The rockets often were several hundred yards from the aim points. The effect of this was that the FACs used two rockets to mark a target and then hoped to find the target somewhere between the smokes. The author was appointed as Maintenance Liaison Officer and discussed the problem with Captain Sanford "Sandy" Kozlen. The author recommended that all of the rocket racks be moved so as to be precisely aligned with the factory breaks in the wing skins between the inner and outer panels. The maintenance troops made the modifications and the results were very good. The author was rewarded by putting two rockets into the cab of a truck from a distance of almost a mile away.
As the action continued through the spring and into summer, more and more AAA was moved into The Trail. The red areas on our charts denoting fly-high zones where we were to stay above 5,000 feet grew larger and more numerous. Binoculars were issued so we could see better, but they were hard to hold still enough to use. Amber sunglasses were found to be very good; however, the experts stateside said our perceptions were all in our minds and that they would not help. Evidently, their schoolbook learning did not explain that the amber lenses would work effectively to help open the irises and so transmit more light and that the tinting would help differentiate between fresh foliage and camouflage foliage.
The 'tip of the spear' was the fighters and their ordnance. The bomb shortage that, according to Mr. MacNamara, did not exist, affected operations to the extent that the 750-pound bombs were too small to do much, especially when fast-fuzed. On one occasion, we had experimental napalm with fins that were put on a suspected truck park. They were accurate and resulted in many secondary fires from what was apparently a fuel storage area. The preferred ordnance was the 3,000-pounder delivered by the Navy. It was quite a sight to see a diminutive A-4 "Scooter" drop an A-1 bomb; it looked like the airplane split in half, since the bomb was so big, relative to the small plane. They were particularly useful for clearing a large area during hunts for bulldozers used for road repair. By way of contrast, the author had two strikes in South Vietnam with Navy planes: one was an A-3 "White Whale" that carried only a single 1,000-pound bomb; the other was a flight of Crusaders with only four Zuni rockets each.[8] The targets were of the notorious area type, that is, rice paddies. Later on, much larger bombs were used.[9]
The strike aircraft were viewed and evaluated carefully by the FACs. On one occasion, the author was provided with a pair of F-104 Starfighters that he assumed would be too fast to do any good. To his surprise, the pair hunkered down and hit like pros.
THE OPERATION
The 23rd TASS's FAC mission was highly classified in those days, being interdicting the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos that provided supplies to North Vietnamese troops and Viet Cong guerillas in South Vietnam. It was usually referred to as simply, "The Trail". This was a misnomer, since The Trail was actually a network of many roads, often obscured by the tropical jungle canopy that provided a virtually solid cover for truck traffic.
FAC missions typically consisted of flying out for an hour, reconnoitering or striking for an hour, then returning for an hour. This provided a reserve of about a half-hour for contingencies such as weather problems.
The FACs were sent into Laos to find trucks on The Trail and control air strikes to destroy them and crater the road. The strike planes were usually fighters returning from raids into North Vietnam. No strike aircraft were dedicated to The Trail and the returning planes were often low on fuel and ordnance, often with as little as five minutes of fuel to use. The litany of conversation between the FACs and the fighters took a few minutes. Fighters would describe their fuel state and ordnance briefly, then the FACs would describe the target, location, winds, AAA, and recommended egress. After the strike, the FACs would give the fighters the all-important Battle Damage Assessment, or BDA, that constituted the official report of the strike. Back at NKP, a detailed intelligence debriefing was done to go into the DISUM.
On one occasion, a team of Operations Analysis folks from a well-known 'think tank' visited NKP and interviewed the FACs. After hearing our complaints, they asked what the overall percentage of success was perceived to be. We replied to the effect that it was about 98%. They seemed surprised that we would gripe so much when we appeared to be doing so well, by their standards.
The main contribution of the pilots was to form a Tactics Panel, so that the old heads could evaluate and recommend. The primary recommendation was to attack choke points where the network narrowed down to a single road, usually at a pass through the mountains. The intent was to rotate the strikes between the various points, code-named Alfa, Bravo, Charlie, and so on, so that, as the AAA was brought into any point, the strikes were moved on to another point. The tactic worked very well and traffic was stopped cold for several weeks. Later on, headquarters concentrated only on Bravo and turned it into a moonscape of craters. [7] This was ineffective, since the traffic simply moved to another branch of the network. The choke point tactic was later named the Momyer Choke Point Tactic, in honor of the Commanding General of the 7/13th Air Force.
The main tactical problem was to optimize, within the constraints of the scenario, the human resources, and the equipment, including the fighters, the time for surveillance of The Trail. The author chose to use techniques that minimized fuel consumption, especially flying slow at low power. In practice, he commonly patrolled at airspeeds of only 70 to 90 knots. Partial wing flap settings were used to enhance control. Oftentimes, he flew into the wind to minimize his speed over the ground so as to provide more time for scrutinizing the jungle for hidden trucks and equipment.
Later on, the FAC job was augmented with jet aircraft, the "Fast FACs". A former A-1 pilot, Woody Bays, opined that, as slow as an A-1 was, 140 knots, it was still too fast to provide enough time for spotting in the jungle. Therefore, one can conclude that camouflaged targets required very slow flying. The Army OV1s had side-looking radar; however, the author is unaware of the effectiveness of the system.
The high point of the mission occurred in the spring of 1966, when the spotters and fighters stopped the flow of war materials to the south for several weeks. Not without losses – Aviation Week magazine reported that there were 126 fighters lost in "Harley Valley" in 1966. U.S. aircraft were notorious for lack of armor, in stark contrast to planes that were designed for the job. As an example, the Russian Stormovik of WWII had over a ton of armor; in one action, Stormoviks destroyed over 200 tanks out of 300. The valley was named after Capt. Lee Harley, the FAC who, along with Amn. Guillet, was shot down there in 1966 by the vicious anti-aircraft batteries. Of the two dozen FACs stationed at NKP, six never returned from their missions, for a loss rate of 25%. One night at the bar, we figured the odds of finishing the tour were less than 50-50. The author flew about 280 combat sorties. Of these, over forty were flown over North Vietnam; this qualified him for a curtailment of his tour of two months.
The author flew one sortie into Harley Valley that was memorable, if not embarrassing. Wingman "Ace" Taylor was briefed to carefully note the AAA sites while low lead attracted fire. The routes were carefully preplanned to take advantage of terrain masking during egress. The entry to the Valley was made to the sound of the AAA being like a boiler factory. Low lead quickly exited, with a huge sigh of relief. On the way out, with adrenaline still pouring, he spotted a white cylinder lying on a hillside. Later, at intelligence debriefing, the interrogator questioned what it was. They agreed that it must have been a SAM site. Later recce revealed it was only a jettisoned rocket pod.
No hits by FACs were reported nor recorded, since we were not authorized to perform attacks.
We always flew in two-ship combat formation, one low for spotting and one high for protection. The theory was that, if low lead took fire and was lost, high back-up would call for airstrikes and clobber the offending AAA site. At one time, headquarters tried to persuade us to fly singly. The boss flew out (his only sortie while I was there) to assess the situation and ended up on the ground. Fortunately, he was only part-way out to The Trail, so the Jolly Greens were able to get him back. His report emphasized that he only made it back because he had a wingman.
The reader may wonder how the FACs managed to stay alive when the fighters were being shot down all around them. The author is proud to say that he never lost a fighter and never lost a FAC. This is attributed to the wise advice provided by the old heads. As an example, a FAC quickly learned to constantly jink and never fly a predictable flight path. He constantly flew an erratic, random flight path of various turns and short climbs and dives. When fire was attracted, the author immediately pitched over as if he were injured. A survey was conducted by headquarters to learn from the FACs so as to pass them back to the FAC instructors stateside. Currently, there is a project to honor FACs with a memorial at the training base; to date, the list of names of those killed in action is well over 200.
During the summer, the 23rd acquired a photo-processing van and high-grade cameras, of the brand used by the astronauts, were issued to the FACs. This only lasted until the reconnaissance squadrons found out about it and defended their turf by shutting us down.
The reader may bear in mind the restrictions on minimum altitudes to be flown. On one occasion, the author took along a photographer to image a small dam. Policy was that we could only hit a dam if there were uniformed guards, i.e., North Vietnamese. After a careful preparatory briefing detailing exactly what was to happen, the pass was made over the dam and the guard was sighted. Unfortunately, the photographer did not make the image, for some unknown reason. On another occasion, photos were made from a very low elevation above the ground, in mountainous terrain, of an entry to an underground refuelling station. These were sent up to headquarters. Several queries were received as to this FAC's height above the ground when the images were made, to which replies were made referring to the elevation above sea level.
On one occasion, the author was assigned to operations in Laos. Laotian Operations were usually the responsibility of the 23rd TASS's brother outfit, the "Ravens", and the clandestine Air America and Continental Air Services, or CAS. The introduction to Laotian General Ma was brief and to the point, with the General loudly declaring, much to our consternation, "Me no believe FAC!" We were informed later that a Laotian FAC had napalmed his own troops the week before. The mission turned out to be dropping leaflets to warn the Pathet Lao that a surprise attack on an airfield would be held within the week. My lead, Capt. Ken Millay, lost his plane on take-off due to contaminated fuel. Later on, I almost lost my plane during a heavy-weight landing into an airstrip that had a very large rock outcropping at the end of the runway. My wingman, Capt. Hatfield, helped me salvage the plane and limp back to NKP for repairs.
On another occasion, the author was assigned to the notorious Khe San to assist in a rescue operation. As an indication of the conditions, three points are offered. First, the FACs who were stationed there kept their planes in revetments to avoid mortar shells. Second, they made Temporary Duty trips, TDYs, to NKP to get out of their cave quarters that were flooded knee-deep with water. Third, upon going to hit the sack, the author was admonished not to shoot the rats. When he awoke in the middle of the night, he first imagined that his pet dog was sleeping on his stomach. Upon waking more, he recognized the red eyes of the creature. He does not recall how he got out to the middle of the runway.
The Nimrods arrived towards the autumn and declared it was their mission to clean out all of the caves. We listened in disbelief and tried to convince them it an impossible mission, since there were literally hundreds of miles of caves at the feet of the limestone karst outcroppings. The caves afforded great protection for the enemy. One cave was particularly difficult to hit because it was at the foot of a cliff that rose about 3,000 feet straight up, so pilots could not dive in close enough for accurate bombing and still have room to pull up safely. We rode "shotgun" with them in the flight engineer's seat behind and between the pilots to check them out on The Trail. On one occasion, the author flew with a Nimrod when the clouds formed a solid undercast. He surveyed the mountaintops protruding through the clouds and calculated an attack plan. The Nimrods were told to fly a certain heading and descend at a certain rate until the plane broke out under the clouds, so they would be perfectly lined up for firing into the target cave. Although highly dubious, they performed the maneuver perfectly and, as predicted, they broke out with the cave dead ahead, looking right at the AAA site. Unfortunately, when the pilot pressed the trigger, nothing happened. After pulling up, it became obvious that the Master Switch was still open.
When it came time for recognition, the ‘gongs’ or decorations, were pinned on by former Flying Tiger Major General Bruce Holloway, who likened the FACs to the famous WW II outfit.
A quarter century later, the same outfit, the 23rd TASS, or Tactical Air Support Squadron, flew OA-10 ‘Warthogs’ in Desert Storm.
At the beginning of his tour, the author read about the twin-turboprop counterinsurgency airplane that was designed by two U.S. Marine Majors. The report indicated that the planes were to be sent to SEA for FAC use. He made some calculations about the performance and concluded that the plane was too heavy for the short wings and so could not fly less than 140 knots. He reported his findings up channels. Later, he read that the plane was being re-designed with longer wings ( 40' vs. the original 20'). Some FACs were miffed about the delay.
The author provided an end-of-tour report that covered many of the deficiencies and offered suggestions for correcting them. One significant contribution that formed part of the report was a study of acoustic surveillance, titled, "Big Ears". The essence of Big Ears was based on the conclusion that all of the targets were hard to find under the dense jungle canopy, but emitted loud noises. Big Ears therefore was to use directional microphones mounted on the O-1s or similar quiet aircraft and flight maneuvering to locate the targets. The author was familiar with the Silent Sam project conducted at Wright Field that used a Cub with a large four-bladed propeller and mufflers. Eventually, the project was picked up by TAC. The end result was a system that used air-dropped acoustic sensors and converted Beechcraft Bonanza electronic aircraft to monitor The Trail; however, the system did not provide for the immediate strike control that O-1s or similar quiet aircraft would have provided. The author was informed that the Bonanzas were designed for unmanned operations; however, the Thai Base Commander of NKP disallowed operation of unmanned aircraft, so pilots had the onerous task of flying orbits for long periods of time. The quiet aircraft aspect was later developed as the Lockheed YO-3 that was used by the DEA, but without any acoustic sensors.
Later on, during the early 1970s, the author was assigned to the Program Office for Drones and RPVs. The highly-modified target drones were used for recce in SEA. Rumor has it that a high-ranking visitor was disappointed to find that the outfit had over 200 people to launch and control the drones from the DC-130 mother plane and recover them with H-53 helicopters. One drone was for high altitude recce out of China; a scathing letter from a Congressional committee criticized the billion dollar project that failed. Still later, he worked at Lockheed on drones. One version was to be air-dropped from a pod on an F-4 for directing Army artillery. Another drone, the Aquila, eventually cost over a billion dollars before it was cancelled. In the meantime, very little monies were spent for dedicated FAC aircraft, with only another modified Cessna, the twin-engine O-2, and, later, the Marine's OV-10, that, as one staff officer remarked, "can carry a lot of people". Much later, the A-10 came into use as the OA-10 and FACs finally got some armor.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Personally, the author would have liked an armored version of the smaller-than A-10-size Fairchild/Republic T-46 trainer with combined acoustic plus infra-red and light-enhancing sensors as a SCAR airplane. Modifications for the SCAR mission would include:
Armor around: the cockpit, engine, and fuel tanks;
Sound- and heat-suppressed propulsion system;
Low observable radar signature;
Redundant flight controls;
Global positioning navigation system for navigation;
Minimal armament for small targets;
Small pod-mounted drones with fused multi-sensor capabilities for hostile areas [6]; and
Such a plane might prove to be highly useful for the mission of hunting SCUDs.
The reader may conclude that much of the content of this critique has been resolved by changes in national policies, training, equipment, and operations. Recently, a friend of the author told of a clandestine base in Central America where thousands of U.S. military personnel manned dozens of aircraft.
REFERENCES
[1] THE PRIZE, book and television mini-series.
[2] reports that Mobil Oil contracted with the North Vietnamese during the conflict and, soon after the war, struck a huge reserve in the South China Sea. Chinese gunboats objected to this as an intrusion into the PRC.
[3] Personal conversation with a friend who flew on KB-50 tankers in Southeast Asia during the mid-1950s. The gist of the conversation was that the North Vietnamese capital of Hanoi was home to one of the largest oil refineries in the world and that the refineries were never targeted for airstrikes, presumably so they could be used after the war. The gist was sent to a large newspaper; however, no reply was received.
[4] Personal observation of several stadium-sized gas domes in Laos raised the obvious question, "Would any photos show these and, if so, would anyone interpret them as being gas domes and, if so, what would be the implications?"
[5] Television news-show interview of former Commander-in-Chief of Pacific Forces, wherein the CINCPAC detailed the oil reserves in the South China Sea around the Spratley Islands. He indicated that, since over a dozen nations claimed them, there was a likelihood of armed conflict in the near future.
[6] During the same TV news show, the Admiral also displayed a micro-drone reconnaissance system that fir into a briefcase.
[7] A recent television show featured an Australian adventurer touring Laos. He said that there were many undetonated duds that result in the death of a Laotian peasant almost every day. The folks who are attempting to clear the land estimated that it would take a century to make any headway in the task. Tourists are buying the duds and bringing them home in their luggage on airliners, he added.
[8] AIR WAR over Southeast Asia, Lou Drendel, squadron/signal publications, p.65.
[9]CALL SIGN PROJECT, www.tlc-brotherhood.org
[10]DERELICTION OF DUTY, H. McMasters.
[11]AIR FORCE magazine Oct. '96, p.42