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TET 1968, Robinhood Style |
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The Combat Experiences of Cw2
James Craig Porter
173rd AHC (Call sign : Crossbow38 ) |
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Tet for the Robinhood's
and Crossbow's started about two weeks prior to the traditional
date. I was scheduled as copilot/peter pilot on the lead gunship for the
Crossbow fire team. I was scheduled to fly with Russ the platoon leader.
Three mortar rounds where fired at the compound, they landed across the
airfield in the 1st division's area. As they where inbound, detected by
the counter battery radar, they sounded the klaxon horn to scramble the
fire team. I was the first pilot to arrive at the ship and was in the
process of starting up the turbine. As Russ got to the ship explosions
started at the far end of the flight line and where walking toward us.
These turned out to be recoilless rifle fire.
There was a PSP road that ran in back of the flight line. Charlie walked
the recoilless rifle fire
smooth down this road, damaging three slick ships and a tanker truck.
Russ, hit the ground and was hollering, "Abort, Abort, Abort." I
hollered back, "abort my ass, you had better get in if your
going." Russ dove in the cargo door as I picked up." As the
third round went off walking toward us I snatched the collective up and
jumped the ship over the front of he revetment. Now in the heat of the
day, the heavy gunship would barely hover out of the
revetment, the only thing I can contribute to the ships ability to jump
the revetment, is a very strong pucker factor going on in the aircraft.
Anyhow, we got airborne, and division artillery gave us the coordinates of
an old abandoned church at the southern edge of the compound, as the
source of the mortars and the recoilless fire. On station about three
minutes later, Divarty had the world light up with flares.
We put several rockets in the rubble around the old church and sprayed the
area liberally with mini-gun fire and a continually application of M60
fire. We then advised Divarty that we where a little light to do any
damage to such a structure and asked if they had and Air Force sorties in
their back pocket that they could divert. They responded by diverting two
sorties of F-4's that made a bigger mess of the partially standing
structure.
We stayed on station to make sure no one moved out of the area. We saw
no one or nothing, but we also never got motor or recoilless fire from
that area again. There is no doubt in my military mind that this was an
exercise to test their aiming of the recoilless rifle fire to discourage
the gunships from getting in the air for the upcoming TET. TET started
promptly at midnight with 122 MM rocket fire, By this time I was an
aircraft commander, and assigned as the fire team leader for the primary
fire team. The klaxon horn sounded and we scrambled to the flight line
with some pretty big shit falling in. Airborne, I got my mission from
Divarty. They gave me the frequency and call sign of the Artillery advisor
of the ARVN battery on our compound that had just been overrun. The
advisor answered my call advising that he was in a bunker, and wanted our
fire on top of his position, that the NVA where on top of his bunker
trying to pry open the bunker doors. We laid down some mini-gun fire and
he was hollering right there I
can hear your bullets hitting the top of the bunker. After two passes, he
came out of the bunker and regained his artillery pieces.
My Crew Chief, and I can't remember if it was Stroud, or Harton,, who had
a starlight scope, the hero of the evening. He had acquired the scope when
a LTC had left it lying on the seat of a courier flight he was crewing.
The Crew Chief surveyed the situation and advised me that there was a wave
of NVA coming out of a wooded area headed for the compound we lined up and
fired mini-gun blindly where he pointed with his M60 fire. I called
Divarty and updated them of the current situation and asked if they would
turn off the flares, they served to light us up as well as the world,
besides I hit one and fortunately it did not entangle in the rotor. Every
time we mowed down a wave of NVA
another would form and come across the open field. We called operations
and asked for the secondary fire team to crank, but to wait for us to land
to transfer our hero with the starlight scope.
We landed and rearmed and refueled and waited for the secondary team to
land to transfer our scope caring Crew chief. We never fired into the tree
line, the source of the waves, they where much easier to hit out in the
open and we did not want to discourage what we had working for us. The
next day a 1st division unit sweep the area and reported to our operations
a 2,000 body count in the field.
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