19 JUL 2015 ONA doc. 4. Tachikawa, Japan
Departed US by Pan Am SFO to TYO and reported in to the Air America/ Southern Air Operations base located on the USAF Base Tachikawa Japan.
After a few days the company finally got its assets assembled and ground school on the Douglas DC 4 transports began. Apparently the company was strapped for pilots as the new requirements to man the three B 727 depleted its most senior pilots. After an accelerated training program and flight training program we received FAA type rating check rides and were immediately given our IOE flights so we could cover the vacancies created by the upgrading of the most senior pilots. Also the FAA only allowed Air America a 15% over schedule time aloft due to the very strong headwinds down out of China in the winter. This caused the flight times to exceed 8 hours a day and necessitated placing two Captains on the flights in the winter out of Tachi to Kimpo and Osan air bases in Korea. After about three and half months the AAM pick up vehicle showed up with a message: Ground school DC-6 Captain 0830 in the morning. Wow! I was really moving up fast and could not believe my good luck. While in the DC6 upgrading process crew scheduling wanted some of us to fly the DC 4. I could not believe it. Some guys actually refused to fly the 4?? I gladly accepted in fact I had grown to really like the DC 4. A real pussycat.
Only flew the DC 4 about 400 hours and got checked out on the DC 6. This was some adventuresome flying.
First we flew daily flights from Tachikawa to Kimpo in Korea every evening. Twice a week, Tachi to Misawa, Chitose and back to Tachi. Once weekly,Tachi to Misaw then to Kwangu and Taegu in Korea, back to Misawa and then to Tachi for a nice days flying. Now that Air America and Southern Air Transport a sister company were fully FAA Part 121 operations I began to learn how to operate under FAA rules. We also had flights from Tachi to Kadena, TPE then Clark Air Base then to Saigon and retrace the route back to Tachi; then on Thursday the flight continued from Saigon to Bangkok and turned around. Heavenly destinations. As the US was building up its forces in Viet Nam, we made many flights into Saigon, Danang, Tuy Hua, and Nha Trang.
One of the most adventurous (now declassified and in the public domain) flights I made was out of Kadena. I was the junior DC6 pilot at Tachikawa, so I was detailed to spend 30 day stretches at Koza, Okinawa to cover flights from the North East Corner of Kadena Base. These flights began OK all FAA proper , aircraft properly marked and maintained and crews legal. We would take off and sometimes were required to land at TPE and go up to the fourth floor of the CAT building and sign papers. If you divulge to any one the cargo you carried or where you wentyou would be liable for 10 Years in Ft Leavenworth Prison and $10,000.00 fine! Later it was changed 20 Years and 20 grand fine. Inflation was running rampant even in the government. I often wondered Whyif I was a civilian did I have to be threatened with Military prison? Didn’t really care.. I was going anyway. After taking off we made an 8 hour flight to a secret base in Thailand and were parked up in the North West Corner. We were instructed to bring all personal effects, flight kits and leave nothing on the aircraft!! We were escorted into the quarters there and told to remove our uniforms and take off all rings bracelets, necklaces dog tags watches and wallets so as to have nothing in your possession to identify the remains with??? After one of the best meals I have ever received in a military mess hall we retired to the quarters and relaxed for a while. They catered the aircraft and then briefed us: Do not address this control tower by its proper name: just say tower. Do not use your tail number or company name and maintain radio silence. Conveniently, just as you take off the Air Traffic control radar would go down for maintenance.
All position reports will be sent by CW to the necessary parties. Once you turn on course to destination, the navigator will give you the data, set your altimeters and descend to 50 feet. I say again 50 feet to fly under radar.. When we returned to the aircraft it seemed strange looking. What was wrong. It was a DC6 then it became apparent; there were no tail numbers or company names on the aircraft…… One other item: I was given a strip of paper with a phone number on it and a name: I was told the name of the person and told if we were forced down to try and contact this gentleman as soon as possible…..Hope I would not forget his name. After departure we climbed to 17,000 feet and flew to our turn point then set the altimeters turned off all lights, (these flights were flown black) and began descent to 50 feet. We had to be low, as salt spray was accumulating on the wind screen. We used the radar to help avoid collision with ships and to pull up over the trees lining the beach and then continued to an airport that was listed as abandoned! After another very good meal, we departed for Thailand. The reverse was slightly different and on one occasion we escorted two C46s back to Thailand where they were destroyed. These C46s super charged R 2800 installed to make high altitude air drops. Because of my being temporarily based at Kadena I flew most of the remainder of the flights by the DC6. The round trip was approximately 24 to 26 flight hours in 32 elapsed hours.
At this time, Japan Air Lines was undergoing a very heavy hiring program and those with flying time in Air America easily had the required time. At this time I had no desire to fly Jet Transports. To me it was like flying the simulator all the time, so I stayed on with Air America and was transferred back to the base of my choice and equipment of my choice. I chose to find out what was so esoteric about STOL flying, so requested Vientiane, Laos and the Pilatus Porter.. I found out: ever look down the barrel of a machine gun shooting at you:; ever look down at numerous troops with Red Stars on their caps and belt buckles all firing the AK 47 at you. I later found out that the now deceased Uncle Ho was infiltrating 3500 heavily armed troops into Laos exactly where I was making an air drop to a road watch team. I could see what appeared to thousands of troops actually a few less than that all shooting at me and see the bullets coming out of the barrel of the guns and the powder was still burning as the bullets flashed buy,
I was mesmerized at all the bullets coming at me. The sky was full and I was merrily flying through the mob of full metal jacketed bumble bees—make that hornets as they were very angry looking.
How can they miss. Sure enough one bullet was not listening and took a short cut through my aircraft through the rudder pedal and felt like a base ball bat hit me in the foot slamming my foot upwards with my leg attached and slammed my knee into the instrument panel rendering me numb from left foot to left hip with generous portions of dumb and a little stupid mixed in.
I finally found out that I was not afraid of getting shot at, but one other major revelation manifested itself which scared me; I was too stupid to be afraid and would ultimately get myself killed. Such a deal! At this moment in time I was left with the following. Numb left side, afraid to look at my boot. If I saw blood I would faint. Had about two minutes to make a decision. Smelled fuel, Christ they must have hit a fuel line! Fuel pressure 0. Don’t move the power leaver or you will be a glider. If I have to ditch into a raging mountain river the following events make take place: Wings break off in trees, fuel dumps in the cockpit then you become a hot dog at a Sunday school picnic, failing this killed on impact with a Teak tree or manage to sift down to the river and drown in the aircraft or escape with a stomach full of outrageous stomach laxatives. Adds up to about 2 per cent chance of living. Nice thought. Then there is a beautiful strip under the plane and the enemy troops are about to come up to the north end of the 600 foot runway. Land? I have a company issued Uzi submachine gun with four 20 round magazines my personal Browning Hi-power 9mm with four 13 round magazines, a Colt Trooper 357 Magnum revolver with 6 rounds of ,357 rounds and a box of 50 ,38 special rounds, two Frag, one concussion, and 3 smail grenades. Rubber poncho two changes of under clothes and socks and a peanut and butter sandwich and a company issued survival kit.. I could not contact the customer because one of the Hmong tribesmen in his panic to call his people snatched the microphone out of my hands just as I told the customer on the ridge line above asked me where are you. He yanked the microphone out of the panel disconnecting it. Now with the customer calling I decided I was probably not going to make it back and decided to land and shoot it out with the bastards until help arrived.
The Hmong soldiers at least 15 years old, poor kids. All males between 15 and 50 were dead. Killed in combat with the NVA communists. They were so scared all they did was scream and did not pull in the static lines from the first parachute drop, so I could not close the drop doors to load the second bundle and at least try to drop it. I landed, reversed and the aircraft filled with dust. Quickly pulled off the side of the runway and shut down. Looked at my foot; no holes or bleeding, guess I won’t bleed to death. Look the aircraft over quickly for fuel leaks. Neither the aircraft or my foot were leaking. Now my chances rapidly flashed up to about 60 per cent chance of getting out. I was getting my machine gun out when I noticed a filthy matted hair Asian man in a Olive green uniform ran out of the jungle with a M16 in his hands. He was screaming enemy, enemy by lao, by lao! It was Thai for go fast enemy. So taking a hal millisecond to analyze this development I got back into the aircraft and hit the start switch. About this time the two Hmong came out of the ether and jumped into the plane. The guy that came out of the jungle was apparently a Thai mercenary as the uniform was the one the US issued to the Thai and Cambodian mercenaries. Turned down the runway and had to take off into the advancing North Vietnamese. I don’t know who was more surprised ,me or them. I made a climbing turn off the runway and slipped over a slight rise in the terrain to get some dirt between me and their bullets. Made it back to where I was flying out of and maintenance inspected the plane. A Filipino reached into the cockpit at my feet and reached in an picked up something. He held it up to me and said is this yours? Damn, all these theatrics for only one bullet. The maintenance guys asked it I could fly the plane back to Vientiane for maintenance as the rudder pedal was almost shot off the plane. Flew back to Vientiane and wrote a Battle Damage Report and turned the plane over to MX while I retired to Papa Chew’s snack bar and tackled two Hanoi Hand grenades and a cup of coffee.
About a half hour later the Operations Manager came in and said Jim, I read your Battle Damage report and it scared me. My hands were shaking and I was sweating just reading it. Would you like to take the remainder of the day off? Being a typical Air America pilot I said Are you kidding me. This is the last day of the month and I am on over time; Fix that thing I am going back up there.
Apparently this area was being used by the NVA as a staging area for attacks on the Facility at Long Tieng which was General Van Pol’s (VPs) headquarters and was under heavy security and as it was doing considerable damage to Hanoi’s escapades in South Viet Nam the NVA was determined to knock out the Alternate.
My next escapade happened after I came back to Vientiane from a short home leave. I flew for a week out of Long Tieng and then was dispatched up to Ban Houi Sai for a week. This was the north west area and was part of the Golden Triangle. We operated from another secret base and were causing the NVA and Chines Communist’s some grief in North Western Laos. It was the usual weather in the rainy season. Strong SW winds and overcast from the ground to 9000 feet. Departed VTE on north western heading. Checked the winds aloft and calculated the drift on my Jeppessen pocket calculator. Just like the big boys. Blasted off from Vientiane overheaded my first check point (Twin Peaks) as they stuck up through the top of the overcast and were a rock solid checkpoint. Assumed heading to Sayabouri, Laos flew out time and Sayabouri was overcast, no contact. Next heading was to Xieng Lom flew out time, overcast, not contact. Took up heading to Ban Houi Sai. By now no contact with the ground fuel was beginning to get low and was on top of overcasts with unknown winds!! Tuned in L 54 NDB. No Id. I saw a carst sticking up through the clouds and was now confused. I thought the only carst was west of Sayabouri. I ma definitely North of Sayabouri big time and have to be up over the Chinese road with radar controlled anti aircraftbattries. Smells fishy looks flaky I think I am going to take a heading towards L 54. While these synapses were slowly conducting my brain signals to my hands I was rudely awaken out of my revere by a loud explosion and a very picturesque Black burst with very angry colored red center in it. The aircraft obligingly jumped clanked rattled instruments all showed shock and my breath was knocked out of my. Before I could get my brain and synapses to conduct a WTF was that, a multitude of black bursts surrounded the aircraft. Finally, I came up with the brilliant thought. If I don’t get out of here I am going to get my butt blown to hell. I pulled the prop into reveres and nearly dove inverted and the thought came to me. You cannot dive into clouds from which a multitude of 12.7 machine gun bullets are streaming from and you cannot hide in clouds from radar. I notice that the cloud bank was moving eastward and dissipating as it flowed over a ridge line so I dove down into a ravine and then only had to contend with the guys with the Red Stars on their caps and their AKs. Finally after about six minutes flying south I saw the Mekong river and turned west bound and followed it to Ban Houi Sai. Mx checked the aircraft; not a single hole..
At this time, I think I was the first aircraft that flew through these Chinese Anti Aircraft Batteries and escaped. They already chalked up three aircraft that were just blown out of the sky. The company sent a photo recon aircraft down the Chinese road and he came back with beautiful 8 by 10 flossies of 147 Chinese antiaircraft guns all blazing away at him.
As time went by the NVA were making constant attacks on our base at long Tieng We were making upwards of 55 take offs and landings a day. The enemy was in the valley just one ridge line over firing rockets into our facilities. We would land, the cargo door was swung open two chutes were placed in door slammed, throttle full open and gone up for another drop. Time on the ground 30 to 40 seconds. Climb up to the drop and now due to the proximity of the enemy, we would pick a tree or rock on the side of the big ridge line we called Sky Line, and fly at the tree, pull the aircraft up almost verticle, release the drop doors and the chute would open while the load was going up and the load would pivot and drop onto the fox holes the troops were in. If you overflew the ridge line to the other side the enemy had 12.7 machine guns set up there along with the usual assortment of AK 47s.Cut the power dive back down get another load. Do this all day long.
Some days my arms would get tired and if I had a long strip I would not lower the flaps other than one or two turns on the extension handle. Then I discovered a trick. Being naturally lazy I learned it you pushed forward on the stick and throttled back the engine the wing loading dropped dramatically and it was a piece of cake to lower the flaps especially if you were on your fiftieth or sixtieth take off of the day.
With all this activity Air America finally had to procure different aircraft in order to adequately service the Customers needs. Enter the de Havilland Twin Otter.
This episode is to be continued