My Stories – “And this is no shit”

By Thomas Nutting

My Tour in Vietnam – Sept 1968 to Sept 1969

Everyone knows that with age one tends to forget names, dates, places, etc. Well, I’m no exception, however, after viewing the D Troop, 3/5 Cav web site several humorous events came to mind that I would like to share. Like I say, maybe all the names aren’t right but at least the events are true to the best of my failing memory. After all these years, one never seems to forget the humorous side of war and tries to hide the sad, frightful events.

Bear Cat Events

I began my tour at Bear Cat where I became a member of D Troop since I was Cobra-rated. I was in Bear Cat about 4-5 weeks after which we moved to the brand new 9th Infantry Division base camp of Dong Tam (see below). Following are events that I remember that happened at Bear Cat.

·         Generator Papa San – A huge (don’t know how much power it put out but it sure made a hell of a lot of noise), diesel-driven generator was located near the officers quarters to provide electrical power to our Troop area. An elderly Papa San’s sole purpose in life was to make sure that the generator never ran out of fuel, oil, and coolant water. Now, this Papa San lived next to the generator, and as I observed, was very conscientious in making sure of doing his duty until one time just before we moved. I assume that CWO Cox was responsible for the generator because just after sundown when everyone needed lights things suddenly got very, very quiet and very dark. I went outside my room to check what was going on and the only thing that I heard was Cox, pissed off to the max, running around shouting that he was going to shoot that Papa San. When we finally caught up to Cox, he explained that apparently Papa San fell asleep and the diesel engine lost all of its coolant water resulting in it seizing. We never saw Papa San again. So much for electrical power at Bear Cat.

·         XO’s Personal Bunker – Our XO at the time, newly promoted Maj Whitworth, had his own personal bunker built just outside the entrance of his ground-floor room. This bunker comprised a seven-foot trench covered by a steel half-pipe conduit which was then covered with sand bags. The trench was so arranged that should Bear Cat come under attack, all the good Major had to do was run out his room and dive head-first into his bunker. Well, a few of the pilots (don’t remember who all was there) had gathered in one room on the first floor and began telling war stories and drinking beer as usual. I being the FNG sat sipping my beer listening to the stories and enjoying myself. Well, it was September/October and wet season, which means everything, was WET, to include the XO’s bunker; the trench was full of muddy water. Somebody came up with the bright idea that he could simulate incoming rockets by using a hand-launched flare that he just so happened to have in his room. We all then gathered on the walkway around the first-floor just above the XO’s room. The next thing that individual shoots off this flare and with a loud whoosh, bang someone shouts “INCOMING”. It didn’t take long we heard loud steps from below running to the door, the door flew open and out dives the XO into his bunker followed by a big splash! With that, everyone on the walkway was roaring with laughter. However, as soon as the XO appeared, drenched from head to foot, they all took off, everyone that is, except me. I was enjoying watching the flare slowly float down to earth when I heard the XO shouting. After coming to my senses I too slowly returned back to the party. We never heard anything more about that event.

·         The Ice Cream Plant Incident – A particular event was told to me that occurred during the move to Dong Tam. Maintenance had an APU on wheels that missed being transported by truck to Dong Tam. One brave Long Knife pilot decided he could try flying the APU out as a sling load. So the APU was towed out and centered on our “runway” facing west. At this point I must explain that a small building, a cool house, named “Ice Cream Plant” was situated at the west end of our runway. Typical of these building it was of wood construction having a corrugated-steel roof. The UH-1 hovered over the APU and ground members then attached the slings from the APU to the UH-1 hook. Since it was a rather hot day and the DA was high it was decided that a member of the ground crew would steer the APU along the ground as the UH-1gained speed. So here was this poor soul running along behind the APU trying to keep it in a straight line aligned with the runway center. Everything was working out just fine until they were about to run out of runway. As luck would have it though, translational lift was reached, the Huey started to climb and everything would have been fine if it weren’t for the Ice Cream Plant. The APU didn’t clear the Plant, as a matter of fact, it either put a big dent in the roof or took it off completely, I can’t remember which.

·         Another Incident during the Move – This brings to mind another incident that occurred during the move to Dong Tam. A Long Knife pilot landed in Dong Tam after carefully dropping a sling load comprised of his personal belongings to include his newly purchased stereo set. Turns out after he retrieved his belongings he discovered a bullet hole in one of his loud speakers. Apparently, “One-shot Charlie” struck again. Needless to say, that Long Knife pilot was pissed.

·         “NVA under Rice”, My Viewpoint - Now this is a firsthand experience from an (at the time) FNG (according to my DFC citation it was 5 Oct, 1968). I was flying front seat with CWO Christensen as AC. We were part of a hunter/killer team searching an area for most of the morning, when as the article says all Hell broke loose. Unfortunately, the turret in the Cobra we were flying was inoperative; nothing worked, no minigun, no 40mm, nothing. All I could do was watch as everyone else had “fun” at the turkey-shoot. Well, we were on station and after making several rocket runs things quieted down a lot.  We were left alone since we had the most fuel (but only two pairs of rockets left) as all the others went to rearm/refuel. Christensen climbed up to altitude so that we could keep an eye on the entire area. It didn’t take long before we observed a uniformed-man get up out of a rice paddy and begin running along a dyke. Christensen immediately rolled in and fired off the last rockets we had, knocking the guy off the dyke back into the rice paddy. During the breakoff pass from the rocket run I noticed that the guy was starting to swim away. Christensen said we can’t do anything since he just fired our last rockets. With that I jokingly said, “What do you mean, I’ve got a .38 here to use.” With that Christensen rolled in and brought the Cobra to a hover to the right of the guy. I opened by canopy and started firing my .38. Now, I must explain something about personal weapons among U.S. Army aircrew members. When I came into the Troop, I was offered either a .45 pistol (U.S. Army standard) or a .38 revolver (U.S. Navy WWII surplus). Remembering back to my experience with the .45 with which I had trouble hitting a silhouette at 25 meters, I chose the .38 which was lighter but could only hold 6 rounds in its drum. So back to the action; reaching out the open left canopy, using my right hand holding the .38, I couldn’t take aim on this guy. After rearming the drum three times (that’s 18 rounds, that I think only every other round fired, WWII surplus?) and hitting the guy in the chest a couple of times, I finally hit him in his forehead, between the eyes. Christensen then climbed back up to altitude and as we started to circle around, another team came on station. Well, Christensen just couldn’t stop bragging about how his front seat just shot a guy between the eyes and with that we went off to rearm/refuel. Later, checking the aircraft for damage, we found that we took two hits in one of the rocket pods; who was shooting at us? Now, this aircraft “belonged” to CWO Aaronson who was really pissed off because, 1) we took two hits in a rocket pod which meant two tubes could not be loaded and 2) he wasn’t there when the action took place. And I was pissed because his turret wouldn’t work.

 

I think it was when we were on our way back again to the area that we heard (I believe it was LT Truelove) a Crusader had to fly to Dong Tam hospital because his front seat shot himself in the left hand. It was later explained that he (a captain, new in the unit) took out his .45 in his right hand and with his right index finger on the trigger (fool) cocked it by pressing the weapon between the fingers of his left hand. In doing so the pistol went off severing the skin between two fingers; blood everywhere and a hole in the gunner’s door, this was observed by me personally. The captain was evacuated off to Japan and never seen again. That night back in the barracks I fell asleep dead tired after a long eventful day. It seems that I just got my eyes shut when the then Crusader Platoon leader Capt Eisemann (Ike) woke me up asking me if I shot a guy with my .38. I replied that I did and he left my room shaking his head. After my complaints about the inoperative turret filtered up higher I then got the additional duty of being Armament Officer, at first under CWO Burchfield and then when he DEROS’d took over.

 

Dong Tam Events

Oh, what a lovely place they made for us. As a matter of fact it was still under construction when we arrived. The entire base camp was built on silt dredged from the Mekong River. Sand everywhere and in everything. However, to keep the sand down our brilliant Army engineers decided to cover the flight line with tar. This was wonderful until you had a scramble mission and had to run out to the farthest row of revetments where the Cobras were first parked. By the time I got out to my assigned HCP my feet were so heavy from all the tar I collected that I could hardly move, yuck! My boots kept slipping off of the steps used to climb into the front seat. To solve that problem, the Cobras where moved from the outer most L-revetments to the inner row of parallel-revetments (so we fat pilots don’t have to run so far) and PSP (Punctured Steel Planking?) was laid to cover the tarred areas at least between the revetment rows. Now to the humorous issues:

·         Callsign “Super Nuts” – When I was on leave before going to Vietnam, my next oldest brother Bob, a “hippie” artist at the time, wanted to paint a cobra on my flight helmet. Well, without thinking I agreed and when I picked it up a few days later I discovered he had painted a psychedelic cobra using purple and green and then painted our “family” nickname “Nuts” along side of the snake. Well, I found it quite interesting and completely different from other helmet designs I’ve seen up till then and even now. When I got in country people starting asking me about the helmet and of course the name too. After I became AC and started making my name known around 9th Div, I began using a new callsign “super nuts” and my wing man, Chuck Nole, used the callsign “Squirrel” since he was always chasing after Nuts.

·         Piss around the Clubhouse” – I spent the afternoon and early evening in our O-Club bunker on one of the few days that I had off. This bunker was built adjacent to the officer quarters so that we officers only had to cross a walkway between the two buildings to enter the bunker. This walkway led from the Troop headquarters building to one of the enlisted quarters building. After consuming several beers I made some silly remark that I bet since I drank so much beer that I could piss around the bunker. Before I knew what I had said bets from my dear colleagues were laid down. If my memory serves me correct then it was my wingman, CWO Chuck Noel that was to escort me on my journey and act as witness. As it turns out this was going to be a bet that I didn’t win nor lose. I exited the bunker on the walkway side, noticed that the sun had gone down, so after getting dark-adapted, turned left to go counter-clockwise around the bunker and proceeded to urinate and walk at the same time. I rounded the first corner, no problem. I rounded the second corner for the long back leg, no problem. I rounded the third corner, had plenty of beer still in my bladder and was about to round the fourth and final corner for the home stretch when out to my right I heard voices and saw first-sergeant Sparks accompanied by our then XO Cpt Rolla Breed. As we two met the other two short of the walkway we saluted as was the custom, however, since my right hand was busy at the time I saluted with my left hoping that the darkness would cover my jester. Well, it didn’t. “Is that any way to salute a superior”, asked CPT Breed. But before I could answer he must have heard and then saw what I was doing. That’s when all hell broke loose. My good wingman could only laugh so I couldn’t keep a straight face. “Put that thing away and get out of my sight”, were the last words I heard from the XO. We returned to the bunker laughing the rest of the night. To make a long story short we had to report to the XO the next morning. He of course wanted to know the details of what we were up to and then so much stated that if he was alone there would have been no problem but since TOP was with him he had to chew us out and that was the end of it!

·         The shortest “Mayday” call – This day we were assigned to cover the Mobile Riverine Force during an operation east of Ben Tre. The Mobile Riverine Force was well-armed with gun boats leading a line of infantry carrying craft sailing along the winding waterways of the Mekong delta. I was covering the lead War Wagon, piloted by Dave Newkirk, circling above in a Cobra at a safe altitude. Newkirk was scouting ahead of the lead gun boat when suddenly all hell broke loose. I only heard one word transmitted from Newkirk; “SHIT”. I then asked, “What happened?” As an answer he said, “My instrument panel just exploded.” I then asked if he could make it to the nearby Ben Tre airfield, which he affirmed, and I said that I would escort him since I needed to refuel anyway. So I followed him in trail until we both landed at Ben Tre. I instructed my front seat to take the controls and got out walking towards Newkirk. We met about half-way between the parked aircraft and I asked him what happened and if he was alright. “We took several AK-47 rounds in the instrument panel and some of the instruments just exploded. I’m alright, except for a splitting headache”, he said. Well, I looked him straight in the eyes and then said, “Hold still. Don’t move.” I then plucked either the minute- or hour-hand of the aircraft clock that was stuck in the flesh of his nose right between his eyes. “You were lucky on this one”, I said.

·         Incident at the Maintenance Hangar – 1Lt Booterbaugh (good thing I still have my Troop Roster, how else could I remember and even spell a name like that) told us in the troop officers club one night about what happened earlier in the day. So, this is second-hand info if you will.  It just so happened that on that day a group of Vietnamese workers were on the roof of the newly built hangar  tarring nails used to hold down the corrugated steel sheets to help reduce the rain drops within the hangar. Lt Booterbaugh was our maintenance officer and he was just walking away from the hangar when a tar bucket crashed on the ground just in front of him. Upon closer inspection he noticed a hand drawn map on the bottom of the tar bucket. This map detailed the entire helicopter parking revetments and where most helicopters were parked. So without further ado, Lt Booterbaugh called the MP’s who immediately gathered up all the workers and took them off for interrogation. That’s the last we heard of them. As a footnote I may add that it was not long after this incident that the Dong Tam airfield came under rocket and mortar fire that was not as accurate as it could have been if the enemy just had that map.

·         How to sleep standing up – Not long after we got settled into living at Dong Tam it became apparent that we then had enough Cobra crews so that each pilot would then be on duty for two days/nights, fly a night mission or be on counter-mortar standby the second night and then have the third day off. I cannot remember the exact circumstances of that day and early evening, all that I know was that I was tired, dead-tired. I had just finished putting in the usual 14-hour flying time day and was heading straight for the BOQ when the incoming sirens started wailing. Well, I was late getting in the bunker that was built first in our troop area and so every seat was taken with standing room only. Like I said I was tired so without further ado I just leaned with my back against the outer wall (still had my ‘chicken-plate’ on) and promptly fell asleep. I can’t remember how long that I was asleep but when I woke up everyone was gone; nobody, but no one thought of even waking me before they left, oh no. “We didn’t want to disturb you since you were sleeping so peacefully”, they all later said (followed by a roar of laughter) when I generally said thanks to all my colleagues for leaving me sleeping against the wall. Now that’s what I call buddies!!

·         Meet the General (MG Ewell) – At the end of a long day with plenty of action during what turned out to be the “Great Battle of My Phu Tai”, Chuck Nole and I checked in at our troop operations and were promptly told that we had to report to a Colonel at 9th Div Headquarters immediately. Oh shit, what did we do now? Off we went to HQ. Well, the Colonel (can’t remember his name but he was one of those gotta-make-General types) wasn’t there at the moment but we could wait outside of his office (which was next to the commanding Generals’ office). As luck would have it there just happened to be a couch in the hall way across from the office so we just sat down and made ourselves comfortable. About then, some gray-haired guy wearing a white t-shirt, jungle-fatigue pants and thongs on his bare feet, walks by, says something like “Hi guys”, and enters the Commanding Generals office. I asked Chuck, “Who was that?” and Chuck answered, “He’s probably the janitor” and promptly fell asleep. Shortly thereafter the Colonel arrived and asked us to come in to his office and report all that we saw during the day’s operation. Afterwards, we found out that we had met the Commander of the 9th Division, Major General Ewell and thought he was the janitor.


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