"HOW THE HANGMAN BECAME A LOACH OSCAR"
By Tony Spletestoser
Copyrighted, all right reserved.
[Tony] Hanegmom and I were talking about writing and
the things that I have written. About how I had saved a couple of Steno
pads that had notes for my Battle Damage Reports. The a few years ago I
looked at them and thought, "hey, these are some pretty interesting
stories." That’s when I started trying to write. It's been pretty tough
for someone like me who can't spell or type.
Bill began telling me about his brother who had been
in Vietnam also. "He had a six month tour in Vietnam with a Combat
Engineers outfit. He was there before me and wrote letters home about
what he was doing. He had volunteered to be a helicopter door gunner
and was stationed at Can Tho." Bill had saved the letters, he said that
they would have made interesting reading for me too. Bill had always
thought about using the letters as a basis for a book sometime. The
older Hanegmon was stationed with the 191st AHC as a door gunner on a
Charlie model down at Can Tho. [The Bounty Hunters]
Bill continues; When I went in, they sent me
to Ft Bragg and then to Ft. Knox for Armored Cav training. I got
orders for Vietnam, When my mother found out about it and she hit
the roof. She wrote letters to the Army and called our Minnesota
US Congressman John Blotnic on the telephone. Mom told the congressman
I've already got one son in Vietnam and I don't want my second son
going there. Can't you send some of them other kids over there?
My CO got a letter from Blotnic and he called me in and said we can't
have two bothers in Vietnam at the same time so you are going to be
reassigned. He told me that I could pick my station even. Well, you
know how it is. To show you how young and cocky I was, I
stepped up and told him, "Sir that's why I volunteered for the draft so
that I could go to Vietnam. My CO smiled and brought out his other hand
with a DOD form for me to sign. It was a wavier that over ruled the
congressman's letter.
I arrived incountry at Cam Ranh Bay. When we
were processing in they asked if any of us had any relatives
incountry. I showed them a copy of my bother's orders for Can
Tho. I got stuck there for a week while all of the rest of the
fellows that I came in with all processed out. I thought, What the hell
am I going to do, be a dog gone Life Guard on the beach at Cam Ranh
Bay?" The next thing that I know, I'm going to some place called
Vinh Long. I got my orders for the 3/5th Cavalry.
To get to Vinh Long I had to go by way of Can Tho.
When I got to Can Tho, they told me to stay right there at the Aerial
Port because no one knew when some one would come by to pick me
up. But me, I can't just sit around there doing nothing, I get up
and start walking around.
I asked one of the guys, "Where am I?" He
says, "Can tho."
I asked him where the 191st Bounty Hunter's area was? He
said, "About a half a mile down that road over there." I found out I
had to overnight there before I got a ride to Vinh Long.
So, I went looking for my brother. I found the 191st
company area and the Bounty Hunter's barracks and yelled out, "Anybody
seen Hangman?" [They called him Hangman too] Some guys called
back, "not here, I thought that you were out." [Our voices
sounded alike] "Hey, you're not Hangman." I said, "I'm his
brother Bill." They told me that he was out on a mission. They asked,
"What the hell are you doing here? I told them that I had to overnight
here and I came by to visit with him. We sat and talked with them
in his hooch and had a few beers and waited.
I was alerted three or four hours later by sound of 3/4
ton Weapons Carrier coming form the flight line. He didn't know that I
was coming. I had one of his buddies say, "Hangman, you've got a
visiter."
When
he came in, he saw me and dropped his gear, and said, "What the hell
you doing here." He hadn't known that I was coming. I told him that I'd
come to help him. We had a pretty nice reunion that night.
When I came to 3/5 Cav. at Vinh Long I was assigned to the
Armored Cav Platoon, the later I was in the Doughboys, the infantry
component of the Cav unit. I found out that Operations of both
the 191st and the 3/5th were trying to juggle my brother's flying and
my time in the field with the Doughboys so that neither of us would be
out in harms way at the same time. Finally, Command gave up and just
sent my brother home a month early. My bother was forever after
pissed off at me for that.
I didn't start to fly as a OH-6A Scout Observer
until after my brother went home.
"The Short Stick"
More Regarding the "Rick's Foot" story.
Bill and I were talking about the broom handle
Short Stick that "D" troop OH-6A Observers used when he was there.
[1970-71] In the spring of 1969 when I had been first introduced to "D"
troop, the Scouts had a little different set up. I told Bill that
I understood about the "broom handle cyclic" now, you had to have
something short so that you it would be out of the way and where you
could swing around in your seat in your "Observer/Gunner mode." It's
just that I had seen the real one in place even with the Frag Bags on
the floor.
Bill: Oh no, Rick and I never had it that way.
We had to make room for more important things like hand grenades and
the "Baby Bombs" than a standard cyclic stick.
Tony: Well that must have been a Bitch
to fly at best.
Bill: Yeah, well it was even worse in that "Rick's Foot" TINS, when
your pilot is in a semi conscious and in a state of shock and thinks
that he is helping you. I was trying to pull back to flare and Rick
kept trying to push the nose down. I'm not sure what was in his mind.
Maybe he thought we were higher, I don't know.
Then when we hit that rice dike road our rotor
blades cut our tail boom off and sent it flying over our heads toward
the C & C Chopper, I was really scared. If it had ever hit their
rotor disk it could have thrown it right back at us. Not to mention
trashing the C & C Huey. But somehow it passed over just missing by
about two feet.
We were lucky that day, but then, I guess, most days that
any of us made back, we were lucky.??
The "Oscar" Young Bill Hanegmon. "I had traded a regular M-79 to
a ARVN for this sawed off version. I thought that it looked neat.
Rick let me try it out one day on some Vietnamese VC pigs. No matter
how I tried, I couldn't hit one. I even had it loaded with Canister
[really big buckshot]. With that sawed off barrel and butt stock, I had
absolutely no control over it. Finally Rick said, "I'll show you how to
do it." He kicked pedals and pickled the minigun trigger and ran the
burst from the pig's ass to its nose. There wasn't anything left for us
to Bar-Be-Que.
You'd never think they would let us fly a
$900,000 aircraft with a goddam broomstick!!!!!!!!
After the Rick's Foot incident, I was
Oscaring for another Loach pilot who got wounded. Later, he
profusely thanked me for saving his life. I told him no sweat; it
wasn't him that I was trying to save!
I had some outside help from WO Keith Harris to make
a pretty good running landing. My wounded pilot's name was
Warrant Officer James McNnamee.
I don't want the Troop to think that it was
just Rick and me that won the war. [And we were winning when I
left!]
Below are all the WarWagon pilots who I flew
with and who had a hand in teaching me to fly:
Captain Jerry Matthews,
Captain Rick Waite
Warrant Officers,
Ray Murphy,
Don Callison,
Morris Clark,
Ed Gallager,
Keith Harris,
Doug Brown,
George Schmitz,
James McNnamee,
Jack Ford.
I flew with all of the above at one time or another, but I
probably flew with Rick Waite more. We were a good team.
It was WO Don Callison showed me how to get in a fight and
then run like a sonofabitch!
WO Morris Clark got me puking sick and laughed!
WO Ray Murphy made me hold the Loach at two foot hover in
the U-Minh forest down in the Elephant grass while he got out and took
a shit!
*******************************************************************
Murph and I were were flying as part of a
Light Fire Team on a mission in the U-Minh, when Murphy says, "Hangman
I gotta go." I told him you can't now, we're in the middle of a
mission. What will the C&C say about that? Murph says, "I
don't care, I really got to go. I'll tell them that I felt a vibration
and that I need to sit her down to check it out." I think that it
was those Malaria schiitt pills they made us take. The pills had really
went to work on him.
I says, "Murph, do you really think that the C&C
will go for
that?"
I'm thinking, "Here we are out here in this big patch of Elephant grass
10 feet high, there's no place to land, and there could be a whole
company of VC down there and HE wants to stop and take a schitt!"
Murph says, "Hangman! I gotta go damnit! Now!
I'll let the Loach down and you hold it at a Hover." Down we
went, he mowed off the top four foot of grass. I held it and Murph
jumped out and disappeared into the grass. I'm sitting there holding
the hover and all that I can see is this elephant grass being whipped
around by the rotor downwash. In my mind's eye I could just see
hundreds of Gooks working their way through the grass toward us.
I also wondered what our Trail and the C&C were thinking above
us. Up there the Trail was circling, the Cobras were circling,
the C&C was circling, nobody up there knew that what this was all
about was that Murphy had the
schiittz.
In a few minutes here comes Murphy out of the
grass cinching up his pants with a big smile on his face. He says,
"We'll tell them that I heard something grinding and thought that I had
better check it out up ground." Yeah! Right!
*******************************************************************
Hypothetical conversation between
two Victor Charlies who were hiding in the grass nearby and witnessing
this:
Wynn Charlie says, "Wow! Look at what those crazy
Americans are doing now! Are they trying to find a new way to hide a
helicopter? And did you see that one round eye take off alone
into the elephant grass?
Van Vo says, "Beats the `buffalo dung' out of me,
but maybe he is placing some new Running Dog Imperialist secret
weapon that will kill us hideously."
Wynn Charlie says, "Look at the white guy still in the
machine, he looks very angry."
Van Vo says, "Yes, we must be very quiet this could be a
bad day to deal with people like that, but maybe soon they will go
away."
Wynn Charlie says, "Yes Comrade, we must take care, there
is no telling what these foreign devils are planning."
*******************************************************************
Captain Jerry Matthews was a maverick and needed some OJT
concerning things that you don't take chances with. "Never
underestimate Chuck." I chewed his butt about that once.
WO Ed Gallager was a very intense personality, and was
always chewing on his big red Moustache!
WO Jack Ford was a little shit and could barely see over
the cyclic, but a great Scout pilot.
WO Doug Brown and me went on an overnighter to Saigon that
we still can't talk about. It was supposed to be a parts run.
WO George Schmitz, the old pro, I started flying as
Observer when he was just finishing up. I could have learned a lot form
this one, ask Bottorff and Owens
WO Keith Harris jumped right in after most of the seasoned
vets had left. Keith saved our ass by guiding and talking me
through a running landing with wounded pilot, McNamee on a simple last
light mission that turned ugly!!!
WO James McNamee, I flew with just a few times, one
time after he succeeded in getting Sir Victor Charles to shoot him in
the knee. He forced me into making a running landing. I only had
2-weeks left in county. I had to do it right. I just saving my
own ass and Jim happened to be along!
Cpt. Rick Waite, our flying time together speaks for
itself.
Pat Ross, Crusader 32, gave me some stick time on a Cobra
and I almost shit my pants!
All of the Pilots had balls of steel, except Callison. He
was always talking about the "Great White Winged Warrior, Chicken Man."
Maybe his were made of Styrofoam and chicken feathers! He was one
of the few of us who thought about tomorrow. He was right and we were
dumbas I guess.
Chicken man, you were alright.
In all seriousness, all of our pilots/Loach/Huey/Cobra and
all the other crew members were the best in the world, and still to
this day I feel the utmost pride to have been able to fly with them at
one time or another.
THE HANGMAN
"D" Troop Loach "Oscar"
3/5th Air Cav. 70-71
The Badasss M-79 and the location of the
Observer's M-60 ammo supply box, or rather, boxes. A really GOOD M-60
gunner could remain firing at a target, holding the M-60 by it's pistol
grip to his shoulder with one hand and splice a fresh ammo belt to the
last two feet with the other hand, without looking!
"D" trp's Observer weapons systems. Hanegmon's M-60, Car 15 and
his trusty thudyeight. Note the M-60 belt running over the back
of the observer's seat.
This was a different setup than the M-60 ammo supply feed system that I
had photographed on a D trp Loach in 1969.
