Flying the Orange

I sold this to Vietnam Mag back in ‘96... About a year later Vietnam printed a article by a Capt. Duckworth, former “Ranch-Hand” C123 pilot. He Poo-Poo’d my account and further his guys used to drink a glass of it as a rite of passage.  (When the fact was that I cloned all of my technical information from a book published by the US Air Force called “Operation Ranch-Hand.”) Check it out.
 
Tony SPLETSTOSER: "HITS THROUGH the CHIN BUBBLE!"  
 
                        CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
 
FLYING THE ORANGE
               
SLOW DEATH IN THE U-MINH
                 
 
Aircraft: Bell UH-1H  s/n 68xxxx               Date:Jan.1971
AC pilot:  Capt. Thomas Scott          Radio Call Sign: White Knights
114th AHC   Vinh long, RVN   
APO 96352 SF
AO, the U-Minh Forrest, Cam Mau Peninsula, RVN.
 
   The Agent Orange story as used in Vietnam has been widely reported many times in other articles.  However, I recently learned from my friend, former Captain Tom Scott, that U.S. Army helicopters had also been used to apply Agent Orange. Some of these missions had been flown by units that I had be attached to while I was there.

    Sometime after I had left Vinh Long where I been assigned to the 214th Hq. Hq. Co., Capt. Tom Scott transferred from the 335th at Dong Tam, to the 114th AHC at Vinh Long.  I had worked with both companies earlier during 1969 until late 1970.  Tom told me that he vaguely remembers someone that came and went who was dressed in tailored fatigues, cowboy hat, boots and carrying a large camera bag. As for me, all chopper jocks look the same in their flight helmets.  Besides that, 25 years ago we both looked a lot different.  A lot was happening all around us, it is hard to remember everything that we saw.
 
   Capt. Tom Scott's 335th Assault Helicopter Company, "The Cowboys", had moved from Bear Cat to Dong Tam during the summer of 1970.  At that time the 214th Combat Aviation Battalion (CAB) mainly supported ARVN troops that were based at Dong Tam.  The 335th had a change of command during that time.  Enter "HARDAS Six".  Tom was at that time "Cowboy 16", a Slick platoon leader of the "Ramrods."
 
     Due to an occurrence earlier, there has been a change of Command.  The new CO felt that it was his mission in life to "straighten out the Cowboys".  Therefore, his nickname "HARDASS Six”, ”Soul Brother SIX”, as well other unprintable titles.

    While always respectful Cowboy 16 and the new Major never quite hit it off.  Some of it was due to the fact that the Company “Six” never flew Combat Assaults with the men. Also, he began relieving and transferring officers' left and right, anyone that didn't agree with him.  It may have been that Tom didn't feel that his new CO was quite the aviator that he should have been, even though Six had aviator wings with a `star', his abilities were lacking. Tom had no respect a man that obviously hadn't the courage to fly Combat Assaults just like everyone else. The Major was a certified straphanger who was just putting in his command time. Soul Brother Six's idea of a Combat Sortie, was an air assault on Saigon or Vung Tau brothel. Tom tried to tolerate him, but it is always hard for a veteran combat pilot to respect a leader who doesn't lead.

   In Dec. 1970, Cowboy 16, found himself banished to Vinh Long to the 114th AHC as a “White Knight.” It just worked out that way. I’m sure that Soul Bro Six would have been offended if he had realized it.

    In a way, the former Cowboy 16 welcomed the switch although he would miss his Cowboys. It was just like Brer' Rabbit being thrown into the briar patch and good Slick pilots were always in demand.  Though he was under the impression that he had been transferred to the 114th, evidently something had been lost in the translation, because it was only after he returned to CONUS that he found out that he had always remained on the 335th's books.  He was puzzled, because toward the end of his tour, he had been assigned the job as Vinh Long 5, XO to the `Vinh Long Six', and the Air Field Commander.  Life in the military can be confusing, even for officers.
            
    As a Slick pilot, the new White Knight flew conventional troop lift insertions. Then one day he was selected for something new and different, spraying defoliant.  The Army team out of Saigon came in with the engineering and equipment to convert UH-1Hs into sprayers of the Orange agent.

    By this time in 1971, the US Air Force’s Ranch Hand operation had been pretty much shut down, but there still was plenty of 55 gal. Drums of Agent Orange around.  Tom's mission to spray a site in the U-Minh Forrest consisted of only his one spray-rigged helicopter, a CnC, and two Cobra gunships.  As opposed to the five to seven UC-123Ks on spray flights, Tom's contribution would be only a drop in the bucket.  S2 must have though there had been something special located at these coordinates in the U-Minh.

    Scott and his crew flew south to a LZ located on the edge of the forest.  Apparently the 147th ASHC Chinook outfit out of Can Tho, had flown in the drums of herbicide earlier.  The spray rig in the helicopter consisted of the deck mounted tank fixture that supported the spray booms that extended out on each side to about 3/4 of the rotor blade span.   The spray tank was approximately 200 gallons that took up the entire cargo compartment between the back of the pilot's seats and the transmission compartment bulkhead.  The spray booms were served by a wind driven pump that had 24-inch diameter 4 bladed propeller.  Tom's two enlisted crewmen's jobs were to man the door guns while in the air and to refill the tank when it was empty.  The drill was to fly low over these trees at 75 to 80 knots. (About as fast as they could go with everything hanging out.) The wonder was that they did not take any fire at all.  Victor Charlie may have been very respectful of the Cobra gunship's miniguns and rockets, although it never seemed to bother them when the UC-123s flew over with their loads.  They always drew plenty of ground fire. It may have been that there just wasn't anyone there, or S-2 may have been fed some bogus Intel.

   The Huey managed to stay ahead of the spray mist except on the turns at the end of a pass or at the times the wind changed on them.  There was always a certain amount of spray mist drifting through the aircraft. Before the day was done, all the aircrew was pretty well soaked.  I don't know how the door        
            
gunners were able to take it, their position being located behind the spray booms?  Even assuming that the first spray head was five to ten feet out from the main fuselage; they were sitting in a bad place.
            
   When the tank was empty, Tom would return to the LZ.  Upon landing, the ground crew manhandled 55 gal drums over to the aircraft; next, his crew hand pumped the defoliant material into the big tank on board.  Tom said that it took longer to refill than it did to spray it out.

   Tom's part of this mission lasted two days.  Now, some 25 years later, he isn't exactly sure how many refills that he flew a day.  Not being of a mechanically orientated nature, he had paid little attention to the equipment or anything except the flying, getting on target and releasing the spray.  It was just another flying job to him at that time.  He believes that he flew four sorties a day, which meant that he probably put out about 1600 gallons of the herbicide total.  After that, one of the other 114th's aircrews took over.  He never had occasion to return to that area, but other pilots told him that after three or four weeks, that this area started greening up and putting out new leaves, everything was growing again.

   At the time he had no idea of catastrophe that this would make of his life.  After returning home a few years went by, then the psychological, emotional and the physical problems began to surface.  Here and there he would read or hear a bit about PTSD, Agent Orange and the problems of other Vietnam veterans.  It took a while to connect his problems with his two days of forest spaying.  It even took longer to get any satisfaction out of the VA.  No one wanted to admit that Agent Orange would cause any problems.  In 1976 Tom had a vasectomy performed, after learning that one his friends who had served with the 101st Airborne, had two of his post-Vietnam children born with severe birth defects.       After thousands of sheets of paperwork and medical tests, nine years ago Tom was able to receive a 100% service connected medical disability.  Though the VA was firm about it having nothing to do with Agent Orange.   The disability check was nice, but his marriage was gone, his nervous condition gets worse year after year, as well as his skin and other medical problems.  Nothing can ever pay him back for that.

    Four years ago in 1990, Tom remarried.  Recently Tom's new wife has indicated that she would like to have children.  On one of his check-up visits to the VA hospital, he asked his doctor if it was possible to reverse a vasectomy.  The VA doctor told him that there would be a 50-50 chance of success, but that he would advise against it because of his Agent Orange exposure.

WHY?
    In 1964-65 our JCS sitting behind desks at the Pentagon, people in their omniscient infinite wisdom, and in the name of what they termed as "saving American GI's lives," decided to employ a kind of chemical warfare in Vietnam against suspected enemy sanctuary locations in the heartland of this beautiful country.  The fact that this could destroy the lives and livelihood of thousands human beings who were not our enemy at that time, didn't seem to bother these heroic planners, nor the chemical companies (Dow/Dupont) that would get rich, or the bankers that were backing the project, who's greatest concern was their monetary return from the conflict.  "Operation Ranch Hand" was born.

   The process is called defoliation and it is nothing new.
The agriculture industry back here in the good Ol' U.S. of A. has been using chemicals for years to make the leaves fall off cotton and soy bean plants, just before the mechanized picking machines go into the fields.  Either crop duster/sprayer aircraft or ground spray machines had applied 2,4-D and variants for years.      The main thing to note here is that since the early '60s applicators, sprayer pilots and ground personnel had to by law, study and pass tests before they were allowed to handle or apply it. They wore special coverall flight suits, boots, face masks, gloves and were warned that it was poison.

   Not so in Sunny South Vietnam. From 1965 'til 1971 it was handled carelessly and applied carelessly, sprayed on the enemy, non-combatants, and even our own men.  To compound the Criminality, our armed forces were lied to and told that it was absolutely harmless to humans, when there had been early evidence to the contrary.
Agricultural Defoliant.  (Herbicide)

    What Agent Orange was?
“Trinoxol” (trade name) Dow Chemical chemical compound butyoxyethanol ester of 2,4,5-T
“Dinoxol”  (trade name) Chemical compound     50% butyoxyethanol ester  of 2,4-D  50% butyoxyethanol ester of 2,4,5-T
 
   Military code; Orange     50% n-butyl ester of 2,4-D
                             50% n-butyl ester of 2,4,5-T
 
                 Orange II   50% n-butyl ester of 2,4-D    
                             50% isoctyl ester of 2,4,5-T
 
   The Herbicide in 55 gal. drums were identified by four inch wide circular band of paint the color of the Mil code.

   Agent Orange in theory was harmless to humans and its persistence in the soil was limited to only a few weeks. It was maintained that very high dosages were necessary to produce any overt effects in humans.

   However there were others that had considerable concern over the potential danger from  2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-paradioxin, commonly known as Dioxin, which was by-product of manufacture, and an impurity present in 2,4,5-T.  While this impurity, Dioxin contributed nothing to the defoliation process; it was present in the compound.

   There had been 11,712,860 gallons of Agent Orange sprayed on So.Vietnam between 1965 and 1971.  Seven years and almost 12 million gallons of poison.

   While  Agent Orange was  proven later to have caused long lasting health problems, Agent Blue, 100% sodium  salt of  cacodylic acid, is an arsenic compound.  Although it is an organic compound and not as toxic as the inorganic forms of arsenic such as sodium arsenite, it can be fatal to both animals and humans.  A probable lethal oral dose being of one ounce or more.   There is no accurate way of gauging Agent Blue's effect on drinking water and food stuffs that was used by the indigenous people could have caused health problems that were more immediate. (However, there was little or no toxicity when applied only to the skin.)

   There had been 2,161,169 gallons of agent Blue sprayed on So.Vietnam between 1965 and 1971.

   During my stay in Vietnam I was aware of the UC-123 Providers aircraft rigged as spray planes. They had the A/A45Y-1 herbicide spraying system installed.  1,000 gallon pressure pumping tanks in the cargo compartment.  The spray material was routed to spray booms that were mounted on hangers attached just forward of the aileron cutouts on each wing.  They usually flew in a five-plane formation with fighter-bomber top cover as well as helicopter gunships for close air support.
   The organization in charge was the 12th ACS based at Bien Hoa. After 1968 it was re-designated the 12th SOS (Special Operations Squadron).  The program called "Operation Ranch Hand"  went on from Jan. 1965 until Feb. 1971. There were times during varying duty assignments which had spray equipment removed, (the aircraft were needed for airlift missions) when pressed for time, aircraft were flown not rigged as spray planes, but with the forward side doors open and the rear ramp lowered, the flight crew handlers
simply took fire axes, chopped holes in the 55 gal. drums, dumped them over on the deck near the rear ramp and let the vortices suck the material out of the aircraft creating it's own spray.  These same vortices swirled the spray back inside the aircraft to completely soak the aircrew.  Even during the best of times using the spray equipment, it was impossible not to be covered with the herbicide.
 
   These UC-123 air crews lives were in jeopardy at all times,        No.1:  In order for the defoliant spray to be effective, the aircraft had to be flown low, in a consistent flight track, and at airspeeds not much more than 100 mph. This made for really good target practice for any little `Winn Charlie' down there to unload his AK-47 on.  Ground fire could always make a Ranch Hand's crew's life interesting.  After April 1969 all Ranch Hand planes were converted to the Jet equipped UC-123K version.  Some experimental high-speed runs were made at airspeeds of 180 knots,but overall it didn't work out.  Normal spraying speed was 130 knots at altitudes as low as possible.

   On the morning of April 7, 1969, a formation of seven Ranch Hand aircraft had planned to make three separate passes over their targets in the U-Minh forest.  On the first pass, .30 and .50 Cal. machine-gun fire hit all but one.  Two of the UC-123Ks lost an engine and proceeded at once to Bien Hoa.  The five remaining aircraft received ground fire on the second pass, and the last plane in the formation lost effective aileron control as bullets penetrated it's left wing and control  surfaces.  The crew maintained limited directional control using differential power settings on their left and right engines.  Meanwhile, other bullets had struck the leading edge of the right wing at almost the wing root.  Here, fuel and electrical lines were cut and a fuel boost pump fed fire started.  They needed to keep the right engine running to keep directional control, so it was a case be damned if you do or be damned if you don't.  The nearest airfield was at Ben Tre located on the big island across the Mekong from the Dong Tam base camp.  While lining up for their emergency landing, the crew discovered an Air America C-46 parked in the center of the runway near the off ramp.  Since there could be no second chance, the 123 pilot lined up on the dry rice paddy on the outside of the airfield's fence.

   On touchdown, the pilots jettisoned the auxiliary fuel tanks that form the rear of the engine nacelles.  This left a trail of fire along the rice paddy for about a half-mile behind them.   The fire in the wing root pretty much went out with the fuel scorce gone.  The UC-123 slid to a stop almost in an exact line with the end of the PSP paved strip.  The flight engineer extinguished what was left of the fire with a CO2 bottle by climbing out through a hatch from the flight deck.  Everybody was safe, but the rice dikes in the paddy had played hell with the landing gear. The whole nose gear assembly had been folded up inside.

   I visited Ben Tre airfield a few weeks later and took a couple rolls of film and made some notes.  I filed it as one of my BDRs.  There was nothing really enlightening about it though, anyone ought to know that if you fly a big airplane low over enemy territory, that you are going to get the @#*#^@ shot out of your aircraft.   Later, a team came down from Tan Son Nhute, disassembled it and a CH-54 Skycrane hooked the big part back to their base.  Three years later it was still in a revetment at Tan Son Nhute.

   No.2:  While the pilots were fairly protected from the chemical by their position up on the flight deck, the other crew members who had to serve the spray equipment had no way to avoid exposure to the agent orange.  No protective clothing or even special handling orders had been issued.  Hell, it was all perfectly safe wasn't it?

    Ranch Hand aircraft were based at Tan Son Nhut, Bien Hoa, Phan Rang, Nha Trang and Da Nang.  The aircraft that I saw were based at Bien Hoa.

    The defoliant spray was fondly known as Agent Orange, not it's color, but it'd Mil spec code name.  It was being applied freely to friend and foe alike, race, color, creed, or sex, it made no difference.  The white man's gift to the agriculture all up and down Vietnam.

    You must remember the 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T mix was a defoliant and would dissipate in a few weeks.  It did not kill the trees, it merely made the leaves fall off. After that trees in this tropical climate would begin to green up and the forest would be as before.  However, the paradioxin does not degrade and it is still there today in the soil and ground water.  The poisoning continues.

    Authors Note: I used personal experiences and a interview with Tom Nesbitt to write this story, however the background for the technical facts came from a book called "Operation Ranch Hand"  published by the Office of Air Force History, United States Air Force,  Washington DC  date: 1982.
 
    The time is now, there are many GI's and ex-GI's that have developed various strange new illnesses after participating in the Desert Storm operation. The United States Government has denied all responsibility. However, the government and the VA are spending several million dollars on research to prove that it is NOT their responsibility.  Deja vu all over again!
 
  Author's Note: In an effort to collect VA Claims information to support other helicopter crews who are victims of Agent Orange, please contact me. For example, I know that members of the 162nd AHC while stationed at Can Tho, flew similar missions, but have no documentation.

    I would like to pool Vietnam Veteran's Agent Orange exposure information and their Post Vietnam related health and medical problems.

   All VA Hospitals are not created equal, some will help Vietnam Vets with Agent Orange claims, others will not. In all cases the Vet has to have some documentation.

    Tony Spletstoser, the really old Tiger.   5 March 2000


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