By
Don Callison
War Wagon 14
©2008
This is the true story about the only armed reconnaissance mission ever flown by members of both Charliehorse and Light Horse.
Background
In 1972 I was an academic instructor teaching OH-6A Methods of Instruction for the Department of Standards at Fort Rucker, Alabama.
A new guy came in and he was to be the MOI instructor for the OH-58A.
Just as soldiers have done for centuries, we began asking about each other’s military past.
The new guy, Joe Douglas, said he’d flown Scouts in OH-58s in Vietnam. That aroused my curiosity since most of us OH-6 guys thought the 58 was a POS and I’d never met anyone who had actually flown them as a Scout.
I asked Joe what unit he had been in and he said, “D Troop 3rd of the 5th Cav”.
Well, that seemed pretty strange to me since I had been in D Troop 3rd of the 5th CAV and we didn’t fly no steenking OH-5.8s (not quite a 6). This observation led to further discussion and it finally dawned on us that we were from the units that had swapped designations in January 1971.
With a stroke of a pen, up north at Quang Tri, C Troop 3rd of the 17th Air Cavalry, callsign “Charliehorse”, became Charliehorse, D Troop 3rd of the 5th Air Cavalry.
In the same instant down in the Delta at Vinh Long, D Troop 3rd of the 5th Cavalry, callsign “Light Horse”, became Light Horse, C Troop 3rd of the 17th Air Cav.
Joe Douglas was "Kamikaze 19". He had been shot down, wounded and DEROSed.
We
became great friends. Joe had grown up in the Fort Rucker
area so he knew what was where.
We spent a lot of time running around together and had some
great deer hunting excursions.
We both lived with our wives in post housing.
On with the story!
It was sunny Saturday morning in the Spring of 1973. I was tinkering with an old VW Bug in the carport when my wife called me in to the phone. “It’s the MPs. What have you been into now”?
The conversation went something like this.
“This is Sgt So&so at the MP Desk. The Provost Marshal told me to call you. He said you are a Scout Pilot. Is that correct Sir”?
“Well hell yes, I was a Scout Pilot”
“We need for you to fly an armed reconnaissance mission for us and the Alabama State Police right away”.
“What’s going on”, I asked.
“We’re after an armed and dangerous escaped convict on post. We’ll give you a complete briefing at the aircraft”.
“What aircraft?”
“An OH-58 located at Center Fleet at Cairns Army Airfield”. “Can you come right away Sir”?
I said, ”Sure, I’ll be there in thirty minutes”.
Now, I had about 20 hours in OH-58s and really didn’t know crap about flying a Scout mission in one. So I called the only expert I knew, my buddy - Joe Douglas.
Besides, I figured it would get me and Joe away from Saturday honey-do’s and we’d go have some fun.
He was all for it. I swung by and picked him up at his quarters and we headed for Carins AAF.
We were met by several MPs. As we preflighted and got the helicopter ready, they filled us in on what was happening and what the mission was about.
In a
housing area called "Allen Heights" on the East side of the
post, near the Lake Lodge at Lake Tholocco, lived a family
whose head of household was an NCO. The NCO’s older brother
had escaped from prison. The State authorities notified the
MPs and the MPs call the NCO’s quarters to advise the family
to be on the look- out. Well, the escaped brother was the
guy who answered the phone.
After hearing the news from the MPs, he grabbed his
brother’s 30-30 Winchester and a .45 auto pistol and headed
across the street and into the heavy woods.
The chase was on.
The only unsettling detail was that the escapee was a
Vietnam Veteran who had been an Infantryman with the 101st
Airborne Div.
Joe and
I hadn’t been too eager to go unarmed hunting for the guy. I
had brought along the old .357 magnum single action pistol I
had carried in Vietnam.
We took the doors off the OH-58 and put a big ol MP in the
left rear seat with an M-16.
But we only had 2 headsets and couldn’t talk to him and we
hoped to hell he didn’t just start shooting.
We took
off and headed for Allen Heights. After finding the house we
began a slow, low reconnaissance in the tops of the 100 foot
tall pines. Joe was doing the
flying, I was hanging out the left door with my trusty
pistol trying to spot some sign. We were pretty jacked up
with the prospect of catching the guy.
After
about 20 minutes on station the folks in the ground search
party called and said they had caught the guy. We never saw
him.
The cops later told us the guy had covered himself in leaves
and was afraid to move for fear of being seen by the
helicopter.
A big Alabama State Police German Sheppard walked up and
stuck his nose in the convict’s face and pretty much took
all the fight out of him.
As usually happens in the service, Joe and I went off on our different career tracks. We met up again at Fort Campbell in the 80’s and remain in touch today.
Who would have thought we would be able to share this story with our brothers and members of both units some 35 years later?
"Kamakaze" from Art Bonevich
"War Wagons" by George
Dyer
Callison Collection
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