Three Missions
By
George Brannigan
Charliehorse
Crew
Chief/Gunner
May,
2024
I
want to share a story about three missions that we flew on.
The first two
happened in the morning, a Friday morning if memory serves.
This also involves
our ops OIC, and in truth I had a few run ins with him, one of
which resulted
on our whole team to be recalled back to our Quang Tri base,
because of what we
found. That was an interesting day as he gave me a special
polaroid type of
camera with a pistol grip/trigger, but it was all enclosed and
the pics would
pop out, but into the cameras body. The first time out there,
north of Khe
Sahn, kissing the border of the DMZ, and maybe just a teeny
bit into
Laos...maybe.
What
we
found on the first mission- 5 new rectangular pits, with
camouflage
coverings that needed to be changed because they were off
color a bit and a
blind scout would have seen it a 1/2 mile away. I tossed a few
frags on top of
one pit and that blew away the cover....to find a brand new
37mm anti-aircraft
gun, with the barrel still wrapped up lying next to it. When
we called it up to
the mission commanders snake, he told me I was wrong, and they
were prime
movers. NOT by any stretch. So, I started a for real shit
storm with a lot of
my unit’s brass, but I knew I was right on this, and didn't
waver.
Mission
lead
called it in to ops, ops recalled our whole team, and my ass
was hovering
over a very hot frying pan as you can imagine. This happened
on a Friday
morning. So, we all came back to QT, refueled etc. and then we
taxied our LOH
over to ops where I was given the camera, shown how to use it,
by one pissed
off Captain. Then we went back out, with full fuel, and I was
pretty much a
leper by then. We went down and I took all the pics needed,
plus some more of 5
new 122mm long barreled field pieces, all with the muzzles
pointing up. I took
pics until there was no more film, I think?
Now
being
the 2nd time out there, Mr. Charles was very wide awake, and
yes they
gave us hell, but all of us came back to base. We got back at
lunchtime. I
handed over the camera to the OPS OIC, and went to the mess
hall-for the first
time since I was assigned to D trp. With our hectic mission
assignments, our
powers that be made sure we were in the air as much as as
possible. And that
was fine for me, that's why I asked for a second tour in the
first place and
asked to be sent up to the DMZ. I heard somewhere on my first
tour in the
central highlands, (II Corps), that it was real sportin' up on
"th'
Z".
Why
do
I remember it being a Friday, it's because the mess halls
ALWAYS serve us
the square fish patties on Fridays. AND, that was the first
and only time I ate
in our mess hall while we were up at QT.
Also, when OPS processed the film(?) or looked at it,
They came to the
mess hall for lunch, (two Captains from ops) and walked up to
me and said, and
I quote, “You were right Branigan", and I said “Thank you.” That got me 'off th'
hook and I was very
relieved to say the least. I never minded putting my ass in a
hot plate with
the enemy, but never with my powers that be. NOT COOL.
Going
on,
all the rest of my meals were c-rats, pretty much for my whole
second tour.
By now you’re asking how in hell did I know exactly what I was
looking at? The
answer is simple.
I
read it in a book. Well, two books if my memory is still
working right. I
called them the "red books", because they had red covers. And
those
books were in OPS. They listed and shown pics of most, at that
time, Russian,
and Chinese weapons and vehicles that were known to us. Always
after my day was
done, my ship all tucked in for the night, my weapons all
cleaned and oiled and
put away, I went to ops to continue to read what our enemies
had to throw at
us. Some of the guys I knew in ops told me about the 'red
books' that covered
what I was looking for, so that should answer how and why I
knew what I was
looking at. And those hours spent at night in ops reading, for
me at any rate,
made be a better scout in terms of identification of enemy
stuff. At least I
was hoping so.
The
"normal"
prime movers were all tracked vehicles in various forms. Of
course, they had plenty of different trucks, but they were
classified as
trucks, not "prime movers" in the strictest sense. Although of
course
they were very often used as prime movers.
THE
FIELD
PIECES-
Rumor
control
had it that a B 52 strike had been diverted to bomb the shit
out of the
area I've been talking about. Is that true? I have no idea it
ever happened. IF
it did, they pretty much missed, by a country. Now I do know
some sort of heavy
bombing did occur, but I suspect it was done by some fast
movers, and not a
B52. If someone knows different, please feel free to annotate
anything at all
that I am writing. I have no problems with being corrected, in
fact I would
welcome that.
AND
while
I am at it, I offer my sincere apologies to the lead snake
driver/mission
commander that I know I pissed off, as well as our OPS-OIC at
that time.
"Hold
my
beer and watch this"...
Recon
had
shown that there were still 3 or 4 cannons still standing and
untouched. We
couldn't let that happen, so we went out on one clear morning
with orders to
destroy them with thermite grenades. But this time, we went
from a Pink team,
to a White team. And guess who was at the controls for that
mission, yup, my
boss, Cpt Bill Allen, (R.I.P.) was driving. I'm sorry I don't
remember who was
flying left seat. But this time my best friend and roomy was
flying in his ship
to cover us, Ed White!!! We had each other’s back so many
times, and we both
made it home.
Ed
was
a tenacious man and a great friend from his beloved state of
Texas.
He
and
his driver and Oscar covered Cpt Allen and I while we went in
to destroy
the remaining field pieces, by me dropping a thermite grenade
down the barrels
of all the remaining big guns. Bill held my ship rock steady,
and we both
ignored all the tracers zipping by, while I pulled the pins of
each thermite
grenade and dropped it down the barrel of all remaining big
guns. It took all
my concentration to steady my nerves while doing this INSANE
act. And I know
for a fact it took Bill's total concentration to hold my ship
rock steady. I'm
here today because of the total commitment of our teams’
nerves of steel
because Ed told me the shit was very heavy that morning. I've
had dreams of
that mission for most of my life, and it still scares me
awake.
When
we
got back to QT after refueling and re-arming we shut down
while the other
teams went out to do their missions. More than one snake
driver came over to us
to congratulate us for a very successful mission and despite
that the gooks
were throwing everything they had at us, we all came back to
base. There was
even talk about decorations for it, but nothing happened
there. It was just
another day at the office for D trp. 3/5 CAV...
Don,
all
this is 100% true, and can be confirmed by Cpt.Tom Ford CH
3/26. He has me
writing up another mission about the Radio Relay special
forces/spook thing up
on hill 950 overlooking the old Khe Sahn combat base.
SP/4
George
Branigan, Scout Crew Chief/Gunner