I joined the troop around the 1st of September 1968 and the surprises were just beginning.  Ace Cozzalio picked me up from 9th Division HQ wearing his 1860’s cavalry uniform, complete with grey hat, yellow scarf and sabre.  In the troop area everyone was wearing a yellow scarf, and most of the officers had grey hats as well.  When the troop returned from the day’s mission, I found that Dave Conrad was my platoon leader.  A big surprise since Dave had been my Tac Officer the first 8 to 10 weeks of Infantry OCS at Ft. Benning.  Dave was a senior 1st Lt. and one other 1st Lt., Jim Clarey, was a section leader.  Their call signs were Longknife 26 and 21 respectfully.  The rest of the Longknife pilots were mostly WO1s with maybe a WO2 here and there.  By virtue of being a 1st Lt. I was listed as the other section leader under the heading of Longknife 20.  Since I was a brand new “Peter Pilot”, I wouldn’t be able to use that call sign until I was a qualified aircraft commander.  I had administrative responsibilities for the WOs in my section, but in the aircraft those WOs who were aircraft commanders were in absolute control.
The troop was still quartered at Bearcat and commuting each day to the Area of Operations (AO) to the south around our future base camp at Dong Tam.  That made it hard to find a spare aircraft to use for my local area check ride.  It took several days, but it finally happened, and the last thing we did was pick up WO1 Ken Lake from the hospital where he had been recovering from injuries sustained in an accident just before my arrival.
I soon found that being on the flight schedule involved days filled with many long hours.  Up at 0430, breakfast at 0500, preflight with flash lights at 0530, followed by takeoff from our separate little airfield, the Round Table, about 0600.  We flew in trail formation when dark because you could hold your position by keeping the tail rotor gearbox of the aircraft in front of you centered in the orange glow of their hot turbine engine.  If you couldn’t see orange, then you were out of alignment and heading for trouble.  The troop would head home at twilight and get back a little after dark.  The evening meal would be held until the troop returned.  A movie would then be shown, and I got the feeling the movie was almost mandatory.  One hopefully got to bed between 2230 and 2300 if you were on the schedule the next day.
A normal mission was for the scouts (Warwagons) and the guns (Crusaders), along with the command and control bird to work the assigned AO, and for the slicks (Longknifes) and Infantry Platoon (Doughboys) to wait at one of the 4 staging areas we used on a regular basis.  These consisted of Tan An airfield to the north of Dong Tam along the highway between Saigon and My Tho, Ben Tre airfield to the southeast, and a little place to the west called My Phu Tay.  Most often we staged at Dong Tam because it was centrally located and our extra manpower would be put to good use helping finish the construction of the buildings in our troop area.  As it turned out, when we did move the BOQ was not complete and we spent several weeks sleeping in large tents. 
On my first mission we flew directly to Ben Tre and all aircraft shut down while our mission commander got a briefing from the local commander.  My first taste of combat came when the airfield was mortared during this briefing (did Charlie know we were coming?).  The runway had drainage ditches running next to it that provided fairly good protection and fortunately they were dry, but I would have leaped into the ditch water or not.
By the time September 26th rolled around I’d been in aircraft that had been shot at and taken maybe one or two hits, but nothing major.  But the action on that day changed everything.  For those of you that know 9th Division or D Troop history, or have read Johnny Hutcherson’s “21 You’re On Fire” you know it was a long, drama-filled afternoon where many lives were at stake.
I was still a very inexperienced Peter Pilot flying with Ken Lake (Longknife 28) and staging at My Phu Tay.  I don’t recall all that led up to the situation other than a ground unit of the division got into a fire fight and a Dustoff medivac aircraft was shot down attempting to evacuate wounded.  The scouts and guns were called over to support Longknife 21 when he attempted to rescue the downed crew and the wounded infantrymen.  In turn Longknife 21 was shot down and Longknife 28 was called to assist. 
It should be pointed out that it would be February of ‘69 before we started replacing our UH-1D aircraft with the more powerful H models.  Our operational ability was limited to the amount of fuel on board and the density altitude at the time.  We normally loaded only 1000 pounds of fuel, which gave us about 1¾ hours of flight time and carried 5 or 6 combat loaded troops.
When we arrived on station we were told to hold off to the northeast and stay ready to make the extraction.  Lt Clarey had assembled the crews and wounded, and they were working their way north by crawling through the wet rice paddies.  They found some sampans for the wounded and were pushing them along in the paddies and manhandling them over the dikes.  The incoming fire was still way too heavy for us to get in.
We burned off an entire tank of fuel orbiting and had to head back to My Phu Tay.  By the time we returned more fire teams of both Crusaders and Warwagons had shown up.  An Air Force forward air controller was directing air strikes along the westernmost tree line.  We reported back on station and continued to orbit.
The 9th Aviation lifted in a blocking force behind the south tree line and their Stingray cobras hung around to help out.  The airspace had become very crowded.  We burned off another tank of fuel and again headed to My Phu Tay.
It was obvious that we needed to get those guys out before dark, and it would not be an easy thing to accomplish.  All the waiting around was really doing a number on my nerves.  My first time in a situation like this with the outcome very much in doubt had me questioning why I ever wanted to fly helicopters.  Ken, on the other hand, seemed to take it all as just another day in the office.  We were all pretty quiet waiting for the word to go in.
The sky had started to darken by the time we got the order.  Ken said he’d come in low level from the east and depart to the north.  We turned inbound and I locked our shoulder harnesses and tried to maintain a semblance of composure.  On short final a F4 flashed from right to left and cut loose a couple of high drag 500 pounders in the western tree line.  He was extremely low and departed near vertical to the south.  I saw the shock wave from the bombs detonating but didn’t hear or feel a thing.  The next instant we were on the ground and I looked toward the western tree line several hundred meters to our front and saw little twinkling lights.  They reminded me of fireflies, but I knew they were muzzle flashes.  I decide I’d rather look somewhere else and glanced to about the 10 o’clock position and saw a row of splashes working their way toward the aircraft.  Just like in the movies.  Not wanting to see any more of that I took a look into the cargo compartment just as a bright blue/green tracer round passes through without touching anyone or anything.  How many non-tracer rounds were with it I have no clue.  OK, enough of this.  As I turned back to the front I see the big yellow Master Caution light was on.  Oh crap, we were hit.  Ken was already cancelling it out by pushing the button on the panel between the seats.  He calmly said “20 minute fuel” over the intercom because he knew I’d not been paying attention.  That’s probably the best possible warning light under the circumstances.  That fuel warning system is notoriously inaccurate and it really meant we had up to 20 minutes of fuel remaining.  It could be as little as only 10 minutes or even less.
Ken called “coming out” and picked up and made a peddle turn to the right, then started moving forward.  The huge red LOW RPM warning light is on and the warning horn is blasting in our headsets.  I heard Ken tell me “beep ‘er up”, “beep ‘er up” and I replied “she’s all the way up”.  Being on the beep button so soon was the only thing I did right up to that point and probably the whole day.  The D model UH-1s had a linear actuator on the fuel control that would increase fuel flow and gives you a few hundred more rotor rpm in extreme situations like we were in now.  The buttons that control the actuator are located on the collective control heads and it’s the Peter Pilot’s responsibility to maintain proper rotor rpm and relieves the aircraft commander of an additional duty when he is busy jumping dikes and dodging bullets.  We were moving very slowly, barely staying airborne when I saw the first of several dikes coming up.  We didn’t have enough altitude to clear it.  Ken popped the collective and we jumped over the dike with little room to spare. He then had to work the collective up and down to keep us airborne and the rotor somewhere near the bottom of the green arc.  We began gaining speed but still had to jump over a couple more dikes.  I finally felt the little shudder in the aircraft as she passed through translational lift and began to fly instead of hovering.  That obnoxious warning horn was silenced and the big red LOW RPM light was finally dark again.  We were up and out of small arms range in a very short time.
Ken did a masterful job getting us out and we started making tracks for My Phu Tay, hoping there’d be enough fuel.  Fortunately there was enough to get us there, and we transferred our passengers.  We had some time alone with our thoughts as the rotor wound down before we refueled and gave the aircraft a thorough inspection.  To our amazement we didn’t seem to have taken a hit.  I remember nothing about the trip back to Bearcat or how anyone else got home.  I know that Lt Clarey, who had been hit in the foot, and the other wounded went to the hospital at Dong Tam, but how they got there is a mystery. 
Someone had counted 11 passengers on board plus our crew of 4.  That’s nearly twice the normal load for a “D” model.  Ken’s outstanding airmanship was all that separated us from a long and very hostile night.  I know that if something had happened to Ken, I never would have been able to get us out.  That really hit home.  I needed to get a lot smarter if I was going to make it through the coming year.
I do remember later that night when Ken jumped flat in my stuff about how poorly I had performed.  How far behind everything I was and my lack of performance during the chaos.  I had to agree with him.  I had learned a valuable lesson. 
Army aviation is probably the only place in the military where a young WO1 can lock the heels of a 23 year old 1st Lt. and read him the riot act.  Yep!  Ken had only turned 20 about 5 weeks before, hardly more than a teenager.  In the name of training, it is expected that the aircraft commanders teach the peter pilots how it’s done.  If that means a royal chewing out then so be it.
With Lt. Clarey gone I had to assume a larger share of the platoon duties.  I needed to schedule crews and rotate them so new pilots learned from seasoned aircraft commanders, so they could assimilate knowledge from each of them.  Some guys got along better with some and not others, so it was not an easy task.  Watching flight hours so people got proper rest was the most difficult.  Everybody wanted to be in the air all the time.  Some of the more experienced aircraft commanders were on the schedule nearly every day.  As often as I could I scheduled myself to fly with Dave Conrad or Ken Lake.  I figured they were my best sources of knowledge and experience.
Dave knew that if I didn’t get hurt I’d eventually be flying as a flight leader and maybe become the platoon leader.  He taught me precision, smoothness and professionalism.  Our flights were constant reminders to “watch your heading”, “watch your airspeed”, “not so abrupt on the controls”.  I listened, learned, and applied those lessons as the year dragged on.
Ken taught me how to fly to survive.  Again I watched, listened, and learned how to get the most out of the aircraft.  I learned how to push the limits of the envelope, yet stay within myself.  Most of all I learned how to relax and to concentrate on the aircraft and not everything going on around me that was outside my control.  Ken is undoubtedly the best UH-1 pilot I ever worked with.  I wanted to be as good. 
Thanks to Dave and Ken I made through the year.  I became an aircraft commander, a flight leader and the platoon leader taking the Longknife 26 call sign. 
Somewhere along the way things changed.  I went from getting into the aircraft and strapping into the seat, to where I felt I was putting the aircraft on.  The aircraft had become an extension of my mind and body.  It would respond to me without a conscious effort on my part.  It was as if I could actually feel what the aircraft was feeling.  What it was trying to tell me.  I’ve heard this is called the mating of man and machine, and I have no better way to describe it.  I don’t know if we all felt that or if only a few of us did.  But for me it was the culmination of everything I ever wanted, every dream I ever had as a child.  I rotated home and it was over.  The knowledge of doing what I was meant to do was behind me.  It was time to set some new goals and find new challenges.
EPILOGUE
I saw Dave Conrad for the first time since late ’68 at the troop reunion the end of April 2015.  We recalled some of the good and bad times about both OCS and Vietnam.  It was good to see him again and I thanked him for helping me get through it all.
I’ve seen Ken Lake on several occasions in the last 15 years or so.  Several years ago at a VHPA reunion, I believe in Las Vegas, we were discussing this very mission.  He told me we did take one hit that afternoon.  I don’t remember it at all, there is a great deal that I don’t recall about that day.  There are 5 nylon “sling” seats across the rear of the cargo compartment of a “D” model.  They are attached to the bulkhead that separates the cargo compartment from the transmission housing.  The crew chiefs always kept the center of these seats folded up and had a case of “C” Rations sat on end and a 5 gallon “Jerry” can of water strapped in place with the seat belt.  Apparently a single round had come through the aircraft and passed directly underneath the seats without touching anyone or anything except for passing through the “C” Rations and the water can.  Ken remembers seeing a water spout pouring out of the can and onto the deck of the aircraft.
Probably 17 or 18 years ago I left my contact information on the troop website under the “Troopers Checking In” heading.  Shortly thereafter Johnny Hutcherson, the door gunner on Lt. Clarey’s crew when they went down and the author of “21 You’re on Fire”, contacted with me.  His whole email consisted of “Is this the same Lt Smith that picked up Lt Clarey’s crew when we went down Sept. 26, 1968”?  With that one question I was brought back into D Troop 3/5 CAV.  For that I will always be grateful.  Thanks Hutch.
I have recently found that taking fragmented memories forty some years old and putting them on paper is not an easy task.  Thank you to Leslie Lake, whose proofreading and editing expertise were instrumental in turning those memories into a readable narrative.
Les Smith
October 2015                                                                                               

 

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