A thousand NVA soldiers launched a dawn assault against Firebase Delta that morning. As we approached the firebase, my transmission oil pressure light came on. I had to abort. If we lost all oil pressure, our transmission would seize, and we would fall out of the sky like a rock. The rest of the Cobra crews repulsed the attack and killed more than three hundred of the enemy.
A few days later, we had a heavy fire team of three Cobras that linked up with a small fixed-wing spotter airplane to form a hunter-killer team. We searched for enemy reinforcements building up inside Laos. Bob Hutchinson, our company executive officer, was in my front seat. Debay and Jones piloted the other two Cobras. We headed out.
“Headhunter Two-Six, this is Panther Three-Six,” I radioed.3
Capt. Ed Smith, the spotter pilot, replied, “Panther, Headhunter Two-Six. I’ve got several trucks out here and a bunch of troops along the road. I can put you guys right to work. I’m at five thousand feet in a left-hand orbit over Route 110 just across the border. Call when you see me.”
“Two-six, we’ve got you in sight. Where are the targets?”
“Watch me, Three-six.”
Smith rolled the single-engine O-1 Bird Dog light-observation plane onto its back and dove steeply, firing a rocket. White phosphorous smoke billowed where it hit the ground.
“That’s it Panther. Right there. Trucks and a bunch of gomers.”
The trucks fled down the middle of the dirt track. Dozens of soldiers scurried into the jungle as we dropped to the treetops. Bob raked the NVA troops with the minigun and grenade launcher while I did my best to hit the trucks with rockets, a challenging task.
My first pair of rockets hit short of a truck and off to one side, exploding in the midst of a group dashing for cover. They were blown to bits, and others nearby were surely wounded badly. We banked hard left, coming around for another pass. I was flying way too slow for my heavily laden Cobra, dragging the skids through tree limbs scaring the shit out of my front-seater. More turret firing. Another pair of rockets. A hit. Right on the hood. Hallelujah!
We kept attacking, taking enemy fire, until we’d shot all our ordnance. “Headhunter Two-Six, Panther Three-Six. We’re done. You can count the trucks damaged and destroyed. Not sure how many we actually hit. Killed lots of people. No idea how many. Looks like Charlie is really building up over here. Up to no good. I’ve never seen anything like it before.”
“Roger, Three-Six. Thanks.”
On April 11, NVA forces in the northern reaches of the highlands swung into action along Highway 19, below An Khe Pass. The area was far to the east of Pleiku, but the highway connected Pleiku to essential ports along the coast. The enemy overran South Vietnamese and Korean outposts and closed the highway. I led a fire team in response, and we joined others already working the battle. It was a day of hard fighting, rapid reversals, and confusion on the ground.
The enemy tried to do what they had done in 1954 against the French. French Group Mobile 100 was nearly wiped out at Mang Yang Pass, thirty miles east of Pleiku, with 500 killed, 600 wounded, and 800 captured out of a force of 2,500. Southern Vietnam was cut in half right through the Central Highlands. That war ended after this debacle was added to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu. The French signed an armistice a month later and withdrew from Indochina.
The South Vietnamese, Americans, and Koreans fought unsuccessfully to reopen Highway 19. Henceforth, resupply of bases in the Central Highlands would be exclusively by air, and we Pink Panthers engaged in actions along the length of the highway as fighting continued. On each of these missions, we flew over the Mang Yang Pass. I reflected on that long-ago fight. I’d read about the battle in Bernard B. Fall’s book, Street Without Joy. All those who died with Group Mobile 100 had been buried in a cemetery in the hills above the pass, standing up facing France. Returning from a mission one day, I circled it, taking pictures of the white markers on the hillside. I talked about it at the club that night. One of the old hands said, “Bad luck to take pictures in the Mang Yang!”
“Bullshit!” I said.
On April 14, we received a radio call that Firebase Charlie was under attack by two regiments, three thousand soldiers, of the 320th NVA Infantry Division, and 130-mm artillery shells were pounding the position. It was defended by 470 South Vietnamese paratroopers and one American advisor, a Special Forces infantry major named John Joseph Duffy.
Dan Jones, the most seasoned pilot in my platoon, was within a couple of weeks of going home. He led the flight. I was his wingman. Dan pointed our flight toward Rocket Ridge, and we coaxed as much speed as our Cobras would give.
Map 2. The core of our mission area in the Central Highlands
“Firebase Charlie, this is Panther One-Three.”
“Panther Lead, this is Dusty Cyanide. I have multiple targets for you. All .51-caliber machine guns.”
“Oh shit!” My front-seater remarked over the intercom.
Oh shit? How about, Oh fuck! I thought as I set my weapons for combat. The .51-caliber machine gun seemed designed specifically to shoot down helicopters. They’d done plenty of damage over the past weeks.
Dan calmly acknowledged, “Roger, Dusty Cyanide. We’re inbound. Give us the positions when we get there.”
We made several passes on enemy guns. Bullets streamed past our cockpits as the NVA gunners tried to bring us down. Rolling in on a .51 position is always dicey. Tracers come at you and miss by a few feet. You try to get rockets onto him before he gets lucky and blasts you out of the sky. We took small arms hits. My knees vibrated like a sewing machine, but I focused on controlling the helicopter, lining up the gunsights and shooting. I was scared but had no time for it.
Dan radioed, “Dusty Cyanide, Panther One-Three. Be advised, running low on fuel. Out of ammo. We’re breaking station for rearm-refuel.”
“Roger, One-Three. Four gun crews destroyed, four guns taken out. Good work. Hurry back!”
By the time we got back, the situation had deteriorated dramatically. Other teams of Cobras had worked while we rearmed. VNAF A-1 Skyraiders and U.S. jet fighters dropped napalm and high-explosive bombs on the advancing enemy as well, but the NVA attack was intensifying, pushing back the South Vietnamese defenders. One of the A-1s was shot down and the pilot killed. The enemy overran outlying posts and breached the perimeter of Charlie itself. As dusk settled in, fires and chaos raged across the hilltop.
“Panther, the battalion commander is dead, acting commander wounded. Enemy broken through on the southwest. Put it there first. Then all around us—but real close.”
“Roger, Dusty. We’ve got ’em,” Dan said.
After a number of Cobra attack runs, Duffy called. “Panther Lead, this is Dusty Cyanide. You have broken the enemy attack, for now. Hundreds of bodies in the wire—maybe a thousand. But we cannot hold.” After a short break, he continued, “We are leaving Firebase Charlie, now. Stop them from following us. Whatever it takes. Put your stuff right on top of the firebase, NOW.”
Another Cobra team joined us, with Forrest Snyder in one of the front seats. We finished laying waste to Firebase Charlie and made our way back to Camp Holloway. The flight picked its way through hills and valleys below a worsening layer of low clouds in the pitch black of night.
The next morning, the badly wounded and exhausted advisor was rescued