"During the night before we got this mission there had been patrol elements out and about. They had been scanning an area with an infrared "Starlight" night vision scope. During that recon they thought they spotted what appeared to be a very large group of people in an open area. They requested us to go out to the area and check it just as soon as it was light enough at sunrise.

    The place they wanted searched was a triangular shaped piece of terrain outlined by canals. It was approximately a mile long on each side of the triangle. In the center, between the canals, was just a plain of rice fields with one lone tree growing right smack in the middle of it. From what we could see there was no place to hide, especially a large group of people.

    We went out there anyway. The Loachs went low-level and began their methodical reconnaissance. After 2 team changes and 4 hours of flying they hadn't found a thing. We spent a lot of time orbiting over that triangle. We had just refueled and they sent us back out there again. This was our third trip and we were getting really sick and tired of just flying around up there watching the Scouts trying to find something. We just knew that either the patrol last night had been seeing things or what they had seen had already left the area. Or maybe they had given us the wrong co-ordinates. It wouldn't have been the first time. But the ground commander wanted us to stay and keep looking. Even though there wasn't even any sign that anybody had recently passed through the triangle we kept flying in circles while the Scouts searched.

    So we were getting pretty bored. I can't think of who I was flying with that day. He was in the back seat and I was in the front seat and I'd had a lot of time logged in the front seat but I hadn't flown with him much. Out of sheer lack of something better to do I said, "I'll bet you a case of beer that I can hit that tree in the middle of the triangle down there by shooting rockets from the front seat and I'll hit it on the first try". He says, "You're on".

    I peeled around to get set up. We told the Loaches what we were doing so they wouldn't get too excited. We let them know we were going to shoot some rockets. I got lined up on the tree and shot two pairs of rockets. I watched them go down and when they hit they rice paddy the scene became surreal.

    It was as if the paddy suddenly became the set for a Hollywood grave yard scene. There were literally hundreds of bodies animatedly rising up from the mud and stalks of rice. Bad guys! They had all been laying down underneath the rice. As the troops materialized we could see there were sampans and all kinds of equipment and stuff buried and concealed. NVA soldiers just started popping up everywhere. They were sure we had discovered their hiding place when the rockets hit the nearby tree. In no time they were panicked, up and running everywhere and in all directions. Most of them were wearing full NVA uniforms. I never again saw that many enemy troops wearing uniforms the whole time I was in Vietnam and they were just scattering like cockroaches across the barracks floor when the light's turned on.

    At the time there were 2 Loaches and 2 Cobras on station. We called back for help to try to get some ground troops lifted out there to try to police these guys up. We tried to fly around them to attempt to heard or coral them into one location. We tried to get them to stop. They were busted! There was no place for them to run and we thought we might just be able capture them.

    But they weren't having any part of that. They were truly routed and most of them were trying to get out of the area by any means possible. Then some of them started shooting at us. Well, we started shooting back and in the frenzy we ended up blasting anything that moved. We made 4 trips back and forth to rearm and refuel before we got them under control. We finally inserted the ground troops to try police up and sort out the mess we had left. Our grunts found one sampan after another hidden under the tall stalks. The little boats were packed with mortars, small arms, ammo and all kinds of supplies, you name it. We were amazed at how they had all those people and all that stuff hidden out there and kept it undiscovered for the 6 hours we had been there searching.

    One incident that happened that day that was kind of funny. My roommate was a Cpt. He was flying in on of the other Cobras. When they ran out of ammunition they had to stay on station just make sure they knew where everybody was so they could direct the next set of Cobras when they returned with fresh ammo. He was out of ammo and flying around trying to figure out how to keep these guys from running away. So he went down low level, opened the canopy and started shooting at them with his .45. The canopy slipped and dropped down on him just as he was about to shoot. As he went to grab it and he fired at the same time. Not only did he make a nice hole in the canopy frame but he also blew the middle finger off his left hand. He got sent home. I can't think of his last name. He may not like that story but that's what happened. Nobody else got hurt that day.

    At the end of the day we were informed that we had found over 250 NVA troops with their equipment. They had freshly arrived from North Viet Nam. We killed 130 to 160 of them. I don't know where the rest of them went but some of them had to have gotten away because I'm sure we couldn't have caught them all because they were running so fast in so many different directions."

Crusader AC, Quinn Sowell, adds some information about this story.
August 2008

The story of the .45 is true although I believe the round passed between major bones of the hand and no fingers were lost. 

Maj. Brofer had been warning Crusaders not to screw around at low altitudes and get shot up because it was hurting aircraft availability.
 I still remember him coming into the party that night and saying:
 "If I find out those guys were down low level screwing around someone’s military career is over."
He was assured none of the Crusaders was low level.  He smiled and joined the party.

 I wasn’t flying that day but I remember the incident and I remember Maj. Brofer at the party.

Thanks,
Quinn Sowell
Crusader 31

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 HELP!!
This is a great story but is unsubstantiated. We have no record of shot off fingers.
Maj Brofer was the CO during this time and remembers no engagement or injury like this one.
It had been suggested that Dick Truelove was the guy who shot off his "thumb". Correspondence with him indicates otherwise. There was an incident of a guy shooting off his thumb in an asshault company at Dong Tam.
Any additional information will be greatly appreciated so we can finish this great tale.

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