Flying the Orange
I sold this to Vietnam Mag back in ‘96... About a year later
Vietnam printed a article by a Capt. Duckworth, former
“Ranch-Hand” C123 pilot. He Poo-Poo’d my account and further
his guys used to drink a glass of it as a rite of
passage. (When the fact was that I cloned all of my
technical information from a book published by the US Air
Force called “Operation Ranch-Hand.”) Check it out.
Tony SPLETSTOSER: "HITS THROUGH the
CHIN BUBBLE!"
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
FLYING THE ORANGE
SLOW DEATH IN THE U-MINH
Aircraft: Bell UH-1H s/n
68xxxx
Date:Jan.1971
AC pilot: Capt. Thomas
Scott
Radio Call Sign: White Knights
114th AHC Vinh long, RVN APO
96352 SF
AO, the U-Minh Forrest, Cam Mau Peninsula, RVN.
The Agent Orange story as used in Vietnam has been
widely reported many times in other articles. However, I
recently learned from my friend, former Captain Tom Scott, that
U.S. Army helicopters had also been used to apply Agent Orange.
Some of these missions had been flown by units that I had be
attached to while I was there.
Sometime after I had left Vinh Long where I
been assigned to the 214th Hq. Hq. Co., Capt. Tom Scott
transferred from the 335th at Dong Tam, to the 114th AHC at Vinh
Long. I had worked with both companies earlier during 1969
until late 1970. Tom told me that he vaguely remembers
someone that came and went who was dressed in tailored fatigues,
cowboy hat, boots and carrying a large camera bag. As for me,
all chopper jocks look the same in their flight helmets.
Besides that, 25 years ago we both looked a lot different.
A lot was happening all around us, it is hard to remember
everything that we saw.
Capt. Tom Scott's 335th Assault Helicopter Company,
"The Cowboys", had moved from Bear Cat to Dong Tam during the
summer of 1970. At that time the 214th Combat Aviation
Battalion (CAB) mainly supported ARVN troops that were based at
Dong Tam. The 335th had a change of command during that
time. Enter "HARDAS Six". Tom was at that time
"Cowboy 16", a Slick platoon leader of the "Ramrods."
Due to an occurrence earlier, there has
been a change of Command. The new CO felt that it was his
mission in life to "straighten out the Cowboys".
Therefore, his nickname "HARDASS Six”, ”Soul Brother SIX”, as
well other unprintable titles.
While always respectful Cowboy 16 and the new
Major never quite hit it off. Some of it was due to the
fact that the Company “Six” never flew Combat Assaults with the
men. Also, he began relieving and transferring officers' left
and right, anyone that didn't agree with him. It may have
been that Tom didn't feel that his new CO was quite the aviator
that he should have been, even though Six had aviator wings with
a `star', his abilities were lacking. Tom had no respect a man
that obviously hadn't the courage to fly Combat Assaults just
like everyone else. The Major was a certified straphanger who
was just putting in his command time. Soul Brother Six's idea of
a Combat Sortie, was an air assault on Saigon or Vung Tau
brothel. Tom tried to tolerate him, but it is always hard for a
veteran combat pilot to respect a leader who doesn't lead.
In Dec. 1970, Cowboy 16, found himself banished to
Vinh Long to the 114th AHC as a “White Knight.” It just worked
out that way. I’m sure that Soul Bro Six would have been
offended if he had realized it.
In a way, the former Cowboy 16 welcomed the
switch although he would miss his Cowboys. It was just like
Brer' Rabbit being thrown into the briar patch and good Slick
pilots were always in demand. Though he was under the
impression that he had been transferred to the 114th, evidently
something had been lost in the translation, because it was only
after he returned to CONUS that he found out that he had always
remained on the 335th's books. He was puzzled, because
toward the end of his tour, he had been assigned the job as Vinh
Long 5, XO to the `Vinh Long Six', and the Air Field
Commander. Life in the military can be confusing, even for
officers.
As a Slick pilot, the new White Knight flew
conventional troop lift insertions. Then one day he was selected
for something new and different, spraying defoliant. The
Army team out of Saigon came in with the engineering and
equipment to convert UH-1Hs into sprayers of the Orange agent.
By this time in 1971, the US Air Force’s
Ranch Hand operation had been pretty much shut down, but there
still was plenty of 55 gal. Drums of Agent Orange around.
Tom's mission to spray a site in the U-Minh Forrest consisted of
only his one spray-rigged helicopter, a CnC, and two Cobra
gunships. As opposed to the five to seven UC-123Ks on
spray flights, Tom's contribution would be only a drop in the
bucket. S2 must have though there had been something
special located at these coordinates in the U-Minh.
Scott and his crew flew south to a LZ located
on the edge of the forest. Apparently the 147th ASHC
Chinook outfit out of Can Tho, had flown in the drums of
herbicide earlier. The spray rig in the helicopter
consisted of the deck mounted tank fixture that supported the
spray booms that extended out on each side to about 3/4 of the
rotor blade span. The spray tank was approximately
200 gallons that took up the entire cargo compartment between
the back of the pilot's seats and the transmission compartment
bulkhead. The spray booms were served by a wind driven
pump that had 24-inch diameter 4 bladed propeller. Tom's
two enlisted crewmen's jobs were to man the door guns while in
the air and to refill the tank when it was empty. The
drill was to fly low over these trees at 75 to 80 knots. (About
as fast as they could go with everything hanging out.) The
wonder was that they did not take any fire at all. Victor
Charlie may have been very respectful of the Cobra gunship's
miniguns and rockets, although it never seemed to bother them
when the UC-123s flew over with their loads. They always
drew plenty of ground fire. It may have been that there just
wasn't anyone there, or S-2 may have been fed some bogus Intel.
The Huey managed to stay ahead of the spray mist
except on the turns at the end of a pass or at the times the
wind changed on them. There was always a certain amount of
spray mist drifting through the aircraft. Before the day was
done, all the aircrew was pretty well soaked. I don't know
how the door
gunners were able to take it, their position being located
behind the spray booms? Even assuming that the first spray
head was five to ten feet out from the main fuselage; they were
sitting in a bad place.
When the tank was empty, Tom would return to the
LZ. Upon landing, the ground crew manhandled 55 gal drums
over to the aircraft; next, his crew hand pumped the defoliant
material into the big tank on board. Tom said that it took
longer to refill than it did to spray it out.
Tom's part of this mission lasted two days.
Now, some 25 years later, he isn't exactly sure how many refills
that he flew a day. Not being of a mechanically orientated
nature, he had paid little attention to the equipment or
anything except the flying, getting on target and releasing the
spray. It was just another flying job to him at that
time. He believes that he flew four sorties a day, which
meant that he probably put out about 1600 gallons of the
herbicide total. After that, one of the other 114th's
aircrews took over. He never had occasion to return to
that area, but other pilots told him that after three or four
weeks, that this area started greening up and putting out new
leaves, everything was growing again.
At the time he had no idea of catastrophe that this
would make of his life. After returning home a few years
went by, then the psychological, emotional and the physical
problems began to surface. Here and there he would read or
hear a bit about PTSD, Agent Orange and the problems of other
Vietnam veterans. It took a while to connect his problems
with his two days of forest spaying. It even took longer
to get any satisfaction out of the VA. No one wanted to
admit that Agent Orange would cause any problems. In 1976
Tom had a vasectomy performed, after learning that one his
friends who had served with the 101st Airborne, had two of his
post-Vietnam children born with severe birth
defects. After thousands of
sheets of paperwork and medical tests, nine years ago Tom was
able to receive a 100% service connected medical
disability. Though the VA was firm about it having nothing
to do with Agent Orange. The disability check was
nice, but his marriage was gone, his nervous condition gets
worse year after year, as well as his skin and other medical
problems. Nothing can ever pay him back for that.
Four years ago in 1990, Tom remarried.
Recently Tom's new wife has indicated that she would like to
have children. On one of his check-up visits to the VA
hospital, he asked his doctor if it was possible to reverse a
vasectomy. The VA doctor told him that there would be a
50-50 chance of success, but that he would advise against it
because of his Agent Orange exposure.
WHY?
In 1964-65 our JCS sitting behind desks at
the Pentagon, people in their omniscient infinite wisdom, and in
the name of what they termed as "saving American GI's lives,"
decided to employ a kind of chemical warfare in Vietnam against
suspected enemy sanctuary locations in the heartland of this
beautiful country. The fact that this could destroy the
lives and livelihood of thousands human beings who were not our
enemy at that time, didn't seem to bother these heroic planners,
nor the chemical companies (Dow/Dupont) that would get rich, or
the bankers that were backing the project, who's greatest
concern was their monetary return from the conflict.
"Operation Ranch Hand" was born.
The process is called defoliation and it is nothing
new.
The agriculture industry back here in the good Ol' U.S. of A.
has been using chemicals for years to make the leaves fall off
cotton and soy bean plants, just before the mechanized picking
machines go into the fields. Either crop duster/sprayer
aircraft or ground spray machines had applied 2,4-D and variants
for years. The main thing to note
here is that since the early '60s applicators, sprayer pilots
and ground personnel had to by law, study and pass tests before
they were allowed to handle or apply it. They wore special
coverall flight suits, boots, face masks, gloves and were warned
that it was poison.
Not so in Sunny South Vietnam. From 1965 'til 1971
it was handled carelessly and applied carelessly, sprayed on the
enemy, non-combatants, and even our own men. To compound
the Criminality, our armed forces were lied to and told that it
was absolutely harmless to humans, when there had been early
evidence to the contrary.
Agricultural Defoliant. (Herbicide)
What Agent Orange was?
“Trinoxol” (trade name) Dow Chemical chemical compound
butyoxyethanol ester of 2,4,5-T
“Dinoxol” (trade name) Chemical
compound 50% butyoxyethanol ester
of 2,4-D 50% butyoxyethanol ester of 2,4,5-T
Military code; Orange 50%
n-butyl ester of 2,4-D
50% n-butyl ester of 2,4,5-T
Orange II 50% n-butyl ester of 2,4-D
50% isoctyl ester of 2,4,5-T
The Herbicide in 55 gal. drums were identified by
four inch wide circular band of paint the color of the Mil code.
Agent Orange in theory was harmless to humans and
its persistence in the soil was limited to only a few weeks. It
was maintained that very high dosages were necessary to produce
any overt effects in humans.
However there were others that had considerable
concern over the potential danger from
2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-paradioxin, commonly known as Dioxin,
which was by-product of manufacture, and an impurity present in
2,4,5-T. While this impurity, Dioxin contributed nothing
to the defoliation process; it was present in the compound.
There had been 11,712,860 gallons of Agent Orange
sprayed on So.Vietnam between 1965 and 1971. Seven years
and almost 12 million gallons of poison.
While Agent Orange was proven later to
have caused long lasting health problems, Agent Blue, 100%
sodium salt of cacodylic acid, is an arsenic
compound. Although it is an organic compound and not as
toxic as the inorganic forms of arsenic such as sodium arsenite,
it can be fatal to both animals and humans. A probable
lethal oral dose being of one ounce or more. There
is no accurate way of gauging Agent Blue's effect on drinking
water and food stuffs that was used by the indigenous people
could have caused health problems that were more immediate.
(However, there was little or no toxicity when applied only to
the skin.)
There had been 2,161,169 gallons of agent Blue
sprayed on So.Vietnam between 1965 and 1971.
During my stay in Vietnam I was aware of the UC-123
Providers aircraft rigged as spray planes. They had the A/A45Y-1
herbicide spraying system installed. 1,000 gallon pressure
pumping tanks in the cargo compartment. The spray material
was routed to spray booms that were mounted on hangers attached
just forward of the aileron cutouts on each wing. They
usually flew in a five-plane formation with fighter-bomber top
cover as well as helicopter gunships for close air support.
The organization in charge was the 12th ACS based
at Bien Hoa. After 1968 it was re-designated the 12th SOS
(Special Operations Squadron). The program called
"Operation Ranch Hand" went on from Jan. 1965 until Feb.
1971. There were times during varying duty assignments which had
spray equipment removed, (the aircraft were needed for airlift
missions) when pressed for time, aircraft were flown not rigged
as spray planes, but with the forward side doors open and the
rear ramp lowered, the flight crew handlers
simply took fire axes, chopped holes in the 55 gal. drums,
dumped them over on the deck near the rear ramp and let the
vortices suck the material out of the aircraft creating it's own
spray. These same vortices swirled the spray back inside
the aircraft to completely soak the aircrew. Even during
the best of times using the spray equipment, it was impossible
not to be covered with the herbicide.
These UC-123 air crews lives were in jeopardy at
all times, No.1:
In order for the defoliant spray to be effective, the aircraft
had to be flown low, in a consistent flight track, and at
airspeeds not much more than 100 mph. This made for really good
target practice for any little `Winn Charlie' down there to
unload his AK-47 on. Ground fire could always make a Ranch
Hand's crew's life interesting. After April 1969 all Ranch
Hand planes were converted to the Jet equipped UC-123K
version. Some experimental high-speed runs were made at
airspeeds of 180 knots,but overall it didn't work out.
Normal spraying speed was 130 knots at altitudes as low as
possible.
On the morning of April 7, 1969, a formation of
seven Ranch Hand aircraft had planned to make three separate
passes over their targets in the U-Minh forest. On the
first pass, .30 and .50 Cal. machine-gun fire hit all but
one. Two of the UC-123Ks lost an engine and proceeded at
once to Bien Hoa. The five remaining aircraft received
ground fire on the second pass, and the last plane in the
formation lost effective aileron control as bullets penetrated
it's left wing and control surfaces. The crew
maintained limited directional control using differential power
settings on their left and right engines. Meanwhile, other
bullets had struck the leading edge of the right wing at almost
the wing root. Here, fuel and electrical lines were cut
and a fuel boost pump fed fire started. They needed to
keep the right engine running to keep directional control, so it
was a case be damned if you do or be damned if you don't.
The nearest airfield was at Ben Tre located on the big island
across the Mekong from the Dong Tam base camp. While
lining up for their emergency landing, the crew discovered an
Air America C-46 parked in the center of the runway near the off
ramp. Since there could be no second chance, the 123 pilot
lined up on the dry rice paddy on the outside of the airfield's
fence.
On touchdown, the pilots jettisoned the auxiliary
fuel tanks that form the rear of the engine nacelles. This
left a trail of fire along the rice paddy for about a half-mile
behind them. The fire in the wing root pretty much
went out with the fuel scorce gone. The UC-123 slid to a
stop almost in an exact line with the end of the PSP paved
strip. The flight engineer extinguished what was left of
the fire with a CO2 bottle by climbing out through a hatch from
the flight deck. Everybody was safe, but the rice dikes in
the paddy had played hell with the landing gear. The whole nose
gear assembly had been folded up inside.
I visited Ben Tre airfield a few weeks later and
took a couple rolls of film and made some notes. I filed
it as one of my BDRs. There was nothing really
enlightening about it though, anyone ought to know that if you
fly a big airplane low over enemy territory, that you are going
to get the @#*#^@ shot out of your aircraft. Later,
a team came down from Tan Son Nhute, disassembled it and a CH-54
Skycrane hooked the big part back to their base. Three
years later it was still in a revetment at Tan Son Nhute.
No.2: While the pilots were fairly protected
from the chemical by their position up on the flight deck, the
other crew members who had to serve the spray equipment had no
way to avoid exposure to the agent orange. No protective
clothing or even special handling orders had been issued.
Hell, it was all perfectly safe wasn't it?
Ranch Hand aircraft were based at Tan Son
Nhut, Bien Hoa, Phan Rang, Nha Trang and Da Nang. The
aircraft that I saw were based at Bien Hoa.
The defoliant spray was fondly known as Agent
Orange, not it's color, but it'd Mil spec code name. It
was being applied freely to friend and foe alike, race, color,
creed, or sex, it made no difference. The white man's gift
to the agriculture all up and down Vietnam.
You must remember the 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T mix
was a defoliant and would dissipate in a few weeks. It did
not kill the trees, it merely made the leaves fall off. After
that trees in this tropical climate would begin to green up and
the forest would be as before. However, the paradioxin
does not degrade and it is still there today in the soil and
ground water. The poisoning continues.
Authors Note: I used personal experiences and
a interview with Tom Nesbitt to write this story, however the
background for the technical facts came from a book called
"Operation Ranch Hand" published by the Office of Air
Force History, United States Air Force, Washington
DC date: 1982.
The time is now, there are many GI's and
ex-GI's that have developed various strange new illnesses after
participating in the Desert Storm operation. The United States
Government has denied all responsibility. However, the
government and the VA are spending several million dollars on
research to prove that it is NOT their responsibility.
Deja vu all over again!
Author's Note: In an effort to collect VA Claims
information to support other helicopter crews who are victims of
Agent Orange, please contact me. For example, I know that
members of the 162nd AHC while stationed at Can Tho, flew
similar missions, but have no documentation.
I would like to pool Vietnam Veteran's Agent
Orange exposure information and their Post Vietnam related
health and medical problems.
All VA Hospitals are not created equal, some will
help Vietnam Vets with Agent Orange claims, others will not. In
all cases the Vet has to have some documentation.
Tony Spletstoser, the really old
Tiger. 5 March 2000