A FIREY FOURTH OF JULY
By Bill King
War Wagon 16
Tape Transcription by Don Callison
Copyright 1998
 
    We were flying a Hughes OH6A Light Observation Helicopter. I was a Scout pilot with D Troop 3rd of the 5th Air Cavalry.
    Our Troop had been working in the vicinity of a terrain feature known as the “Wagon Wheel” located in the Delta region of South Vietnam. While doing a visual reconnaissance (VR), we Scouts, callsign “War Wagons”, suddenly began taking heavy small arms fire from a nearby treeline. The ground mission commander who was riding in the rear of the Command and Control (C&C) Huey got permission from the province chief to engage the guys that were shooting at us. We attacked the treeline with M60 machine guns, mini-guns and hand grenades. We marked targets and the Crusader’s Cobras raked the enemy position with 2.75mm rockets. We really busted those guys’ asses. C&C ordered our lift platoon, callsign “Longknives” to use their UH-1H Hueys to insert ARVN infantry troops. During their sweep of the treeline the troops found a variety of paper documents, maps and other Intel. goodies.
    This was just after we had been in Cambodia participating in the Sanctuary Offensive of 1970. What the ground troops found was really freaky. In with the stuff we captured was unnerving evidence that the bad guys knew a lot about our unit. Not just the usual military unit strength stuff but specific things like, which buildings at our home base in Vinh Long that we occupied. They even seemed to know which rooms we lived in. There were even line drawings designating which of us were to be taken out. We figured that some our hootch maids must have given them the VC the information. They actually had a diagram of our room showing the bed that I slept in and the beds of the two other guys in the room too. But the key discovery was a copy of their battle plan. Their battle plan for the area indicated the requirement for six .51 caliber or 12.7 mm machine guns.
    The War Wagons rabidly beat the bushes for the rest of the day and by late that evening we had located and with the help of the “Crusaders”, destroyed five of the menacing guns and their crews.

    So bright and early on the morning of the 4th of July we were sent out to find the last one.

    Therein lies the tale...

    We were still searching the area near the “Wagon Wheel”. We were low level and scouting around. 1Lt. Rick Waite was flying as my wingman, also called “trail”. It was Rick’s first or second day flying as a Scout pilot. Sgt. Dan Huish was my gunner and Sp4 Ray Burdette was flying with Rick. Ray was an experienced gunner and was “breaking in” the new guy. We continued the VR. There was a lot of sign but nothing really definitive. Then we came upon an area with a whole shit load of footprints. This was a really creepy and spooky place. I could just feel it. I knew there were bad guys around and I thought we’d have to dig them out. I called the Cobras in on a strike to shoot up some junk I’d found. I just wanted them to knock down some of the trees so I could get a better look at the stuff on the ground. We held off a short distance away from the target. I liked to come back in on the target right beneath the Cobras just as the wingman would break from his run.

    We headed back to the target and arrived over it just as the last pair of rockets hit and exploded. Dan and I just didn’t see a thing. My second sixth sense told me the enemy was hiding there. We were sure of it. We suppressed our instincts and began to work in a slightly different direction.

    As we slowly hovered along just above the tree tops we probed the jungle, Rick’s voice came up on the radio and he said, “I think we took some fire back there”. I said, ”What do you mean, you think you took fire? Either you did or you didn’t”. There was a short pause and he said, “Yeah, we’re pretty sure we got shot at that last place”. I turned and flew back to the earlier area but Dan and I still didn’t see any dinks. I was just getting ready to key the mike and tell Rick to take the lead and show me where he took the fire from, when I flew right over the missing 12.7 machine gun emplacement. I felt like…. “Holy Shit”! Then it was as they say, “Katie Bar the Door”! There were three guys in the doughnut pit with the gun. Luckily for us they were looking up and away from us. They were watching the Cobras! I jerked the helicopter away from as I got on the radio.

    Everyone who observed or was involved in what happened that day all seem to have different stories based upon what they saw and heard.

    I remember that I was just about to say, “I’ve got the 51 cal. with doughnut hole and we’re going to mark it with a Willie Pete (White Phosphorus grenade). I’m going to make an extended high speed run in, I’ll tell you when to start your dive. When you see the smoke, shoot.” I could swear I heard Cpt. Roy Sudek in Cobra lead say, “Yeah, I got you in sight”.

    I pulled the ship around and headed back to the heavy machine gun’s position. It was located near a canal at the end of a long treeline. I planned to go in fast, pop up over the treeline with the minigun going and let my gunner mark the target with the grenade. As I came up over the treeline I radioed Sudek, “Start your dive now”! That’s what I remember. While I was making the call I was rolling out of a turn and I remember watching Dan take the pale green grenade and hold it out the door of the Loach. As he held the grenade outside in his left hand he pulled the pin with his right. Then he placed his right hand back on the M60 that had been resting across his lap and left arm. He turned and looked at me to see that I knew he was ready with the grenade and that he was ready to start the bomb run. He turned back to the left and I had just lifted the safety cover for the minigun trigger with my right index finger and was getting ready to squeeze when I heard a sound like a paper bag being popped and felt like somebody slapped me in the face. I blinked my eyes and when I opened them up all I could see was white. I yelled, “ SHIT”! I blinked my eyes shut again. The next time I remember opening them I saw that I was on the ground and sitting on what was left of the aircraft. The whole front end of the little ship was gone; all I could see was the fresh air intake panel and the radio console.

   There had been about 70 guys hiding in the treeline leading to the gun pit and they all just sorta hosed us as we flew by. Dan got hit in both legs, the left hand and left shoulder. Other rounds hit the frag bag between his feet where more WPs and fragmentary grenades were stored.

    Rick later said that as we were hit he saw my head, both of my arms and one leg hanging outside of my door as we rolled nearly inverted. He said my right arm was flailing around like a cartoon character’s as the ship hit the ground in about a 45-degree nose low attitude. Rick tried to land right next to our ship I but he said the shit in the frag bag was exploding and throwing shrapnel and debris all around the helicopter. He aborted his first attempt, went around and tried again. This time Rick was able to set his ship down in a rice paddy. It was about fifty meters away, just on the other side of a ditch.

    At about that time I recall that I was laying on the ground. I looked up and saw Ray and Rick running toward us. Rick was carrying a sawed off AK47. I saw his eyes get really big as he got closer. Suddenly his hands shot straight up and he pitched forward and flopped face first into the mud. I thought, “Aw shit! He’s been shot by the VC”. But he had just hopped over the rice paddy dike and landed in the semi-hidden ditch. He tripped fell flat on his face. Rick got up and came running over. Ray was already on the other side of what was left of out aircraft.

    Roy was just then landing his Cobra landing nearby. Roy left the attack helicopter idling and hopped out to join Rick and Ray in the recovery. Rick and Roy picked me up and dragged me over to the Cobra. Ray was trying to pull what remained of the left side of our helicopter off of Dan.

    As the pilots got me to the Cobra I remember yelling at them, ”Just throw me over the rocket pod and let’s get the hell out of here”! We were still taking fire from the VC in the treeline. They yelled above the roar of the idling AH1G, “No dumbass! Your leg is broken! You’ll fall off”! I remember saying, ”I won’t fall off, I’ll hang on for dear life”! They shut me up. Then they rolled me up into a little ball and stuffed me into the empty front seat. Roy hopped into the backseat and away we went.

    Ray said when he first got to our helicopter that I was still strapped in it. But my first memory of seeing Ray was when I was out of the ship. I remember lying on my back, looking up at the grass and rice stalks. I was trying to play possum and I was going to wait for some badguy to come up to cut off my ears for the reward, then I was going to shoot him.

    Anyway, Ray said he saw me still sitting in what was left of the cockpit. During the crash I’d managed to retain my infamous white helmet that I always wore just to piss people off. The guys saw the “Cue Ball” moving so they figured I must be alive. Ray remembers that both of my feet were crumpled and stuffed on the left side of both the tailrotor pedals. I was slumped over in the seat and it was shoved forward in what was left of the right half of the helicopter. Ray said as they ran up they asked me where Dan was, that I told them I didn’t know then said, “ I had held my breath and I hoped he had too”. By that time I had began to realize the burns up the nose and down my throat. Ray then reached in and hit the seatbelt’s quick-release and not thinking or realizing I was dangling on such a steep angle, all he saw was me flop forward. Then he heard the horrendous loud snap as my ankle broke because my feet were still jammed between the pedals and the console. That was also about the time he noticed that the flak vest that had held my chicken plate was burned and completely gone. So were my jungle fatigues. But the chicken plate was still there and it had two huge holes in it. He said I was completely black from the burns. But when the chicken plate fell away he could see the area that it had covered was deep purple. I’d already started to bruise and impact of the bullets on the plate had left huge welts wherever it had touched me. The body armor had stopped a couple of 30 caliber rounds but had cracked nearly all of my ribs.

    We were air evacuated to the dispensary at Vinh long.

    Just before Roy lifted off I saw Dan still laying on the ground spread eagle. All I could see was his charcoal colored figure mixed with garishly red blood oozing out of it. When we hit the ground Dan had violently snapped forward and he literally ate the edge of the instrument panel, the windshield cross bar, his M60 and an assortment of smoke and tear gas canisters. The impact tore out most of his teeth. He eventually had to have a total rebuild job. Anyway, I thought he was dead. So I’m all scrunched up in the cockpit and the next thing I hear is a bunch of really loud swearing going on and it was like… “Dan! You’re alive”! And as soon as he knew I was alive we both knew everything was ok.

    The funny thing was that when I saw Dan I thought, “Boy he looks really fucked up…..I wonder what I look like”? There is rearview mirror in the front seat of a Cobra and I grabbed at that son-of-a-bitch. Sudek had already given me a cigarette and I was just sitting there thinking, ”Shit, it’s a damn menthol and I hate menthol, but what the hell, it’s a cigarette”. I turned the mirror and took a look at myself. That was when I realized that I was seeing out of only one eye. It looked like the whole left side of my face had melted. My forehead was laying over where my left eye should have been. Just hanging there like a big old drip of flesh. I thought, “ You look really fucked up too”. I tried to hand the cigarette back to Roy. I yelled, ”Grab the smoke! Grab the smoke! I’m gonna pass out”! I don’t know if he got it or not because I fainted.

    I woke up when we were on short final to the hospital helipad. They took me into the exam room and I remember saying, “Don’t let Doc Waller in here”. He was the flight surgeon at Vinh Long. Those were my gin drinking days and he and I were the only guys around that drank gin.

   I’d often come back from flying and there he’d be. Passed out cold on my bunk, cuddling what was left of one of my bottles of gin. So he and I were good drinking buds, but he kept telling me, “Bill, someday you’re going to get your ass blown away”, and I really didn’t want to have to lay there and get poked and prodded by a guy that kept on saying,

    ”I told you so! I told you so”!


    Link to Guinner Dan Huish's recollection of this day.

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