Sucker Hole at Ha Tein

Sometime in late 1970 or early 1971 I was flying as aircraft commander in a flight of three slicks to Ha Tien
 (I believe that was the name) on the west coast of South Vietnam.
 Upon arrival at the Ha Tien, the airport was fogged in except for a sucker hole. 
The first two slicks made it through the sucker hole and landed. 
I was number three and the hole closed up as we descended.
 I made it down low level but I could not find the airport due to thick fog. 
After about 1 hr of low leveling over the rice paddies and canals trying to determine where we were, and critical on fuel,  we flew over 3 sampans of Viet Cong in their traditional black pajamas. 
VC were diving over the side of their sampans as we overflew them and as we passed over them we heard the familiar rat tat tat of AK47 fire. 
Approximately :01 minute later the low level fuel light illuminated.
Not wanting to land in the vicinity of the VC, I happened to overfly one of the triangle shaped ARVN compounds, made one circle and landed smack in the middle of it severely disrupting the inhabitants of the compound. 
We stayed there for several hours, helping with the ARVNs with the perimeter security,  until I was able to get through to HQ and give them my location on an old WWII type land line crank radio telephone.  
Finally, one of our aircraft brought us a drum of fuel.

I don't remember any of my crew members names that was with me that day, so if anyone remembers this incident,
I would love to know the names of the rest of the crew.

 I wasn’t sure where to post this on the website, Don so I thought it would be best to send to you.

 I have other war stories for a later date.

 Dale Johnson 
Longknife 27

---

Webmaster comments: