Eagle Station Part 6

"Heavy accent, bad English, sounds like a flak trap," s.h.i.+fleto said. He checked his watch. "We don't have much time." He put his hands back in his lap. Christ, he thought to himself, twelve months of this, eleven pickups, shot up dozens of times, I'm ready to hang it up. Should have retired five years ago.

He turned to Kelly. "It's a flak trap. Got sucked into one of these at Hue, When I was TDY at Da Nang, we lost a bird on a phony call from the survival radio of a dead Thud driver."

"Maybe so," Kelly answered, "but I'll see what I can find out. it sounds different than someone trying to sucker us in.

Kind of plaintive."

"Suit yourself," the older man said, "just stay on course for Lima 36."

Kelly spoke into the boom mike attached to his helmet. "Station calling on Guard Channel, this is Jolly Green 22, over There was no answer.

"Station calling, this is Jolly Green, do you read?" Still no answer.

Joe Kelly thought for a moment about what the person transmitting said, then called again.

"h.e.l.lo, Tewa, this is Jolly Green. Tewa, this is Jolly Green.

Talk to me." He activated the radio direction finding (RDF) gear and waited for the voice to call back. The RDF needle would swing and point to the direction of the transmission.

He heard the carrier wave, then some tentative sounds, then the voice.

"h.e.l.lo, is Tewa. Sor is sick. You come please. You come please."

Kelly got a good bearing, about 20 degrees port. "Yes, Tewa, I hear you. Put sir on the radio. Give the radio to sir, Tewa."

Joe spoke as if to a child.

"Listen, Kelly," s.h.i.+lleto said on the intercom, "we've got to get to 36 tonight and in one piece. If this were a legitimate shootdown, we would have been told by King to monitor the area and listen for a specific call sign. Even if it was an old shootdown, we would have known the approximate area and would have a handle on this call. Let's get on with our deployment." s.h.i.+lleto stared straight ahead through the plexigla.s.s of the big helicopter as if willing the craft suddenly to be past this unpleasantness and somehow be over its destination.

The normal crew complement of an HH-53B Jolly Green helicopter was five: pilot and copilot, a flight mechanic, and two PJs. The big helicopter, known as a Super Jolly Green, had three 7.62mm (.30 cal) miniguns that could fire up to 4,000 rounds per minute.

In addition to the Air Force crew were four Hmoung soldiers returning to Vang Pao's army after some special training by American forces in Thailand. They had been warned that there might be a diversion in case of an emergency to pick up a newly downed pilot. They had smiled nervously and didn't seem to understand a word. None looked to be more than fifteen years old.

"Colonel," Kelly said, "for Christ's sake, it won't take any time from our flight plan to talk to this guy on the radio. You act as if every time I depress the mike b.u.t.ton I'm changing course 90 degrees. I'm only talking to him. If he's a phony, it will be the first of a kind in this area and worth alerting the others about. If he is for real, well, then, we've got to do something."

"He's not for real, you can bet on that," s.h.i.+lleto said, more on hope than conviction.

Kelly keyed his mike again. "Tewa, do you read, ah, do you hear me? I am Jolly Green. Tewa, answer Jolly Green. Push b.u.t.ton on radio. Answer Jolly Green, Tewa."

"GET THE f.u.c.k OFF GUARD CHANNEL," a voice boomed through their headsets.

"Cool it," Kelly said on Guard to the unknown complainer.

"We may have an emergency here. Tewa, Tewa, talk to Jolly Green."

"Chollie Gleen, Chollie Gleen, is Tewa. Sor is sick. You come Chollie Gleen. You come."

"Tewa, give the radio to sore. Give the radio to sore."

Inside the cave, Wolf was fighting a wave of drowsiness.

He heard as if from a great distance the halting conversation between Tewa and somebody on the small survival radio.

"Oh, sor," Tewa said and held the radio out to Wolf, "is Chollie Gleen.

You talk."

With an effort Wolf pulled the radio close to his mouth and transmitted.

"Jolly Green-this is Wolf. We bailed out of a Company aircraft. Hiding in cave in karst. Need pickup. Pretty sick. Hit on head."

"Understand, Wolf," Kelly returned. "Will you authenticate Romeo Alpha, please?"

Rescue helicopter personnel and FAC pilots carried a code wheel that was reset to a new code each day. To verify that the person they were talking to on the radio was not an enemy, they would call out letters of the phonetic alphabet and the responder was to give the letters lying opposite them on the small cardboard wheel.

Wolf grimaced with the effort to pull his thoughts together. "Unable to authenticate. Airplane was Air America C-46 number 715. The first three of my serial number are 470.

You can verify that at Victor Tango. There are two of us. Approximate location three miles north of Ban Ban." He hated to give the location in the clear but had no choice.

Captain Joe Kelly turned to look at Lieutenant Colonel Paul s.h.i.+lleto. "I think we've got two legitimate survivors from an airplane based at Vientiane. if we hustle we may be able to make a pickup before dark."

"Nothing doing," s.h.i.+lleto said. "That's not enough information to go on. We've got to verify there is a 715 missing from Victor Tango. Even at that, these could be phonies. They could have picked up the tail number from the crash site, same with his dog tag. No, I think we should stay on course for Lima 36."

"Oh, bulls.h.i.+t, Colonel," Kelly exploded. "No way the PL could just happen to have an English speaker at a random crash site. I say let's go for them."

"And I say not until we have verification from V through Queen, and then get Queen's permission to go to the site." Queen was the call sign for the rescue command post at the Tan Son Nhut ARRS headquarters.

"It's getting dark fast, that will take too long." Kelly took the controls, snapped the helicopter off autopilot, and turned to a heading of 345, the course the direction-finding needle last shown.

"Colonel, I appreciate your concern," Kelly said in a conciliatory tone, "but I am on flight orders as aircraft commander for the entire deployment, and as an instructor pilot as well, and that places me in command of this flight. I'm going to check with the crew and see what they think."

A Jolly Green pilot did not arbitrarily decide to make a pickup attempt without talking it over with the two PJs and the flight mech. Too much rode not only on each man's performance but on his evaluation of the rescue situation as well.

What might look fine to the pilot might be clearly undoable to the flight mech or PJ. All of the men had to be up and ready -What the h.e.l.l to fly into what could be a true valley of death.

Kelly switched the intercom jack box by his left thigh to talk to the flight mechanic and the two PJs in the rear. He gave the backend crew a quick rundown of what he had heard and what he thought, then said: "Okay, crew. It sounds legitimate to me, but we don't have much time to screw around, so sound off.

Flight mech?"

"Sir, I'm with you, but let's not hang it out too far," said the flight mech.

"PJ One?"

"Ho, let's go," PJ One said in an eager voice.

"Ditto," said PJ Two without being asked.

"All right, then," Kelly said in a light tone, "we're going down to see what's up."

He rolled the helicopter out of the turn and transmitted on Guard.

"Wolf, give me a long count."

Lying in the cave, Wolf Lochert heard the request and held the transmit b.u.t.ton down for a mental count of ten. He was too exhausted and fuzzy-minded to count out loud. Tewa hovered nearby in the gloom.

On board the helicopter the direction needle pointed straight ahead toward the signal from the survival radio. Kelly switched the intercom jack box by his left thigh to talk to the flight mechanic and the two PJs in the rear.

"Okay, guys," Kelly said, "listen up. We're talking to two possible survivors on Guard Channel. I'm DF-ing to them now.

Flight mech, make sure the pa.s.sengers are seated and strapped in. PJs, be ready with the hoist if we have to go down." The two PJs and the flight mech rogered the call. Then Kelly switched over to his High Frequency radio and called Queen. He gave Queen the information about a crashed C-46 and the survivor's serial number, and where he was going to investigate further.

Then he asked that a backup Jolly Green be scrambled from alert to cover them in case they had to go in for a pickup.

"Negative backup available, Jolly Green 22. Alert birds are airborne, so are their backups. Use pilot's discretion."

Rescue procedures called for two Jolly Greens to be present for all pickups in high -threat areas; one was called the high bird, the other the low bird, The high bird would orbit high and safe from enemy guns to act as backup while the low bird went in for the pickup. There was usually an on-scene commander present controlling the entire rescue effort. He would coordinate the rescue helicopters and the big prop-driven A-1 fighters, which were used both to suppress the antiaircraft guns trying to shoot down the rescue force and to stop enemy troops trying to capture the downed crewman, Now, in October of 1968, over 2,200 fixed-wing and helicopter pilots had been shot down over North and South Vietnam and Laos. Over 1,300 had been successfully picked up. The ARRS crewmen and support pilots had learned how best to pull a man from the ground under heavy fire.

Unfortunately, the communist forces'had also learned how to use crash sites, radios, and fake crewmen as flak traps. More than once a perfectly accented American voice had come up on the survival radio saying the way was clear. Usually, unmilitary phraseology or unfamiliarity with the rescue procedures that every crewman was taught in a variety of survival schools gave the fakers away before the rescue force was in gun range.

The phrase "use pilot's discretion" meant Queen had put the ball in Kelly's court, If all went well, it could be said he had used excellent discretion. If it went badly, it would be said he had used poor judgment and, at best, would probably have his IP orders revoked and a rather derogatory statement entered into his efficiency report; at worst, he and his crewmen would be dead or captured.

Kelly didn't really give two-thirds of a purple f.u.c.k for any of that. He cared only for the man on the ground and the crew in the helicopter behind him. There was a very thin line as to how far he could hang.out the lives of the flight mech and PJs who depended on his skill and judgment not only to get the job done but to get it done without reckless risk.

Not every flight mech went along with Joe Kelly's We Die That Others May Live philosophy. Many preferred that the others" include themselves, a reasonable request. Many pilots felt the same way.

Flight mechs were generally of a different mold from the PJs. Flight mechs started life as a General Aviation Mechanic, Helicopter (slanged to GAMs and referred to as Greasy-a.s.sed Mechanics). Some helicopter mechanics decided they wanted to fly aboard their birds for fun and excitement, not to mention the extra flight pay added to the monthly salary and the silver wings of an aircrewman. When they had enough experience to apply (up to a five-level in USAF terminology) and were good enough as rated by their line chief and maintenance officer, they could go to school to become a flight mechanic in a specific helicopter.

Others who had experience in the unit helicopter could be upgraded locally.

PJs, on the other hand, usually were quite satisfied with Captain Kelly's decisions about hairy pickups. Pis were there to rescue people, Pis were in combat so that others might live, and Captain Kelly gave them great opportunities to do just that. Ergo, Captain Kelly made good decisions, they said.

The PIS remembered Kelly's reaction when a staff wienie in Headquarters had suggested that the Jolly Greens paint big red crosses on their helicopters and remove all the guns. "h.e.l.l, no!" Kelly had exploded.

"As far as that goes, in addition to the guns I want a chin turret with a grenade launcher." PJs frequently traded flights among themselves to fly with Joe Kelly. An aggressive Jolly Green Crew was self-selective.

PJs, who almost always were younger than the flight mechs, came in two categories: those that had become Pis purely because of their desire to get down in the weeds to help their fellow man, and those who-in addition to that reason-wanted to live the daredevil existence of a combat PJ- A PJ was either a Florence Nightingale or a knife-fighting Florence Nightingale.

To a downed crewman, often injured, it made no difference whatsoever what the motivation of the man was who came to rescue him, the man was there and that was all that mattered.

Most PJs felt that the helicopter and the pilot that flew it was merely a PI delivery system. When fighter pilots and backseaters would gather and talk about air rescue people in general, and PJs in particular, they would frequently be seen to make cupping motions with their hands well apart as if describing giant three -foot globes, and the words they used would include "b.a.l.l.s this big."

After Kelly had told them of the upcoming rescue attempt, the three men in the cabin of Jolly Green 22 set about their tasks. The flight mechanic scanned each of the four Hmoung soldiers and told them the flight was diverting to check on some downed crewmen. They were to remain strapped in at all times and keep their feet out of the way when any crew member had to move about the cabin. The four Vang Pao soldiers smiled and bobbed their heads and didn't seem to understand a word the flight mech said.

The two PJs checked all their provisions, their rescue equipment, their medical gear, and the three 7.62mm miniguns mounted in a left window, the rear ramp, and the right door.

The right-door gun had to be swung forward to clear the doorway so the flight mech could get to the hoist that was mounted just above the door on the outside. The hoist was a heavy hydraulic unit that raised and lowered the penetrator. The penetrator was a heavy metallic device shaped like a big arrowhead, with three paddle seats that unfolded down from it like petals from a flower.

It was lowered on a 280-foot steel cable from the hoist, which was controlled by the flight mechanic. Except when the PJ rode it down, the penetrator was closed and its weight forced it through the jungle canopy. A PJ descended if the survivor was unable to strap himself onto one of the seats. The flight mech stood in the door, raised, lowered, and guided the cable while telling the pilot using hot mike on the intercom just what was happening and where he should move the helicopter to position the penetrator. If the flight mech did not guide the cable with a gloved hand, particularly when it was winding up, it would usually jump the track on the reel and snarl into a mess called a birdcage.

"Okay, pilot," the flight mech said, "all is squared away back here."

"Roger," Kelly said. "We'll try for a visual in a few minutes." Outside the speeding helicopter, the sun had just touched the horizon. "Give me one more hold-down, Wolf," Kelly transmitted.

Wolf lay flat on his back, the radio in his hand resting on his chest.

He barely made sense of the request. When he finally knew what was needed, he pressed the transmit b.u.t.ton for a few seconds and released it.

"Got a strong signal, Wolf," Kelly transmitted, "now get ready to pop some smoke and we'll see what we can do about getting you back for supper."

An involuntary groan escaped Wolf's lips. He mouthed a faint whisper.

"Tewa, get smoke my pocket. Pull when I tell you." He made a feeble attempt to pull a day/night smoke flare from his leg pocket. Tewa looked confused, so Wolf tapped the bulging flare in his pocket. "Get,"

he said. "Get." Tewa moved to comply. The tinny voice on the RT-10 spoke again.

"We're coming up on some karsty stuff now, Wolf. Be ready with the smoke."

Wolf motioned toward the cave mouth with his thumb. "Tewa make smoke outside when I say." Tewa shrugged helplessly and pointed to the flare that lay in his hand. It was like a thick baton, six inches long by two inches in diameter. Each end had a pull tab that ignited either an orange smoke generator or a flare that would make a glowing red light.

Wolf pointed to the tab on the smooth end of the baton. "That make smoke," he said.

The flare end had a k.n.o.bby collar I-or identification at night by touch alone.

Tewa became very animatcd --i cupped his ear toward the door. "Chollie Gleen, Chollie Gleen," he said. Wolf listened but all he heard was roaring in his ears that told him he didn't have much time of useful consciousness remaining.

In the helicopter, Kelly pointed a gloved finger at the karst field rising from the jungle dead ahead. "In there someplace," he told s.h.i.+lleto. Kelly punched the transmit b.u.t.ton. "Okay, Wolf, now's as good a time as any. Pop your smoke. Let's be quick. Almost dark."

Wolf heard the beginning of the transmission, the "Okay, Wolf" portion, then the voice faded quickly on his tiny radio.

At the same time, Wolf heard the distinct sound of a helicopter overlying the cave. He thought the whirring noise sounded like the wings of a giant angel. It was peaceful and maybe he should just sleep for a while. Let the angel take care of things.

He jerked as his subconscious triggered an alarm. The radio, the smoke.

. . "The antenna," Wolf said, and motioned toward the mouth of the cave. "Get the radio antenna out of the cave." Tewa looked bewildered, then c.o.c.ked his head at the sudden noise that swelled in from the cave entrance. It was the sound of many guns firing, big ones and little ones, in a rocketing barn-barn-barn of sound that mingled and boomed inside the cave.

"Holy s.h.i.+t," Joe Kelly said as a heavy stream of tracers seemed to converge on the helicopter from all directions a reflexive movement he added power, lifted and banked away from the heaviest stream. Then he heard the hammering of the three miniguns from the backend.

"That's it," s.h.i.+lleto said as he involuntarily hunkered down in his armored scat. "Let's get out of here."

What the h.e.l.l do you think I'm doing? "Yes, sir. We're gone."

He scanned the engine and flight instruments. They appeared to be operating correctly and were not reflecting any engine damage. He took up a heading for Site 36.

"Sir, we've taken hits and were here," the flight mech called on the intercom.

"How bad?" s.h.i.+lleto asked.

"Pretty bad. The Pis are working on them. They say we got to get them on the ground ASAP."