Eagle Station Part 10

Sandy Two made his pa.s.s as directed, and no one reported seeing or hearing any ground fire.

"Nothing for it, gang," s.h.i.+lleto said on the intercom. "Let's give it the old cathouse try." He would have to fly the big helicopter down to less than two hundred feet above Wolf and Tewa, then have Bernick let the penetrator down from the hoist to the ledge at the cave mouth so the two men could strap themselves onto the device. Then the Jolly had to wait while the flight mech winched the two men up high enough to clear the surrounding terrain before they could fly away. Depending on penetrator ground time, the entire sequence required the Jolly Green helicopter to hover in one position as a perfectly still aerial target for at least three minutes. s.h.i.+lleto punched up the UHF radio.

"Sandy, Jolly Green Two Two is going in. Give me hover cover. Wolf, be ready. I'll have the penetrator at your front door in about four minutes. If anybody shoots at us first time around, we'll pull off and have the Sandys prep the area."

"Jolly Green, Wolf. I think you should prep the area first.

There are enemy troops one klick due south of my location. I saw the campfire smoke at dawn."

"Wolf, they didn't shoot today, they may have moved. Besides, weather is moving in. Running out of time. We've got to try a pickup. Coming down."

Lieutenant Colonel Paul s.h.i.+lleto started the first move in an intricate aerial ballet that required perfect timing from himself and the two Sandy pilots. Each Sandy A-1 had to weave a protective cover over the moving helicopter, a protective cover that allowed them to keep the helicopter in view while simultaneously scanning the terrain beneath the helicopter, the prospective pickup site, and the surrounding region for probable antiaircraft guns. If one or more guns came up, the Sandys had to crisscross each other's path and that of the Jolly Green helicopter to suppress the fire. Normally, the force was doubled: two helicopters and four Sandys.

"Jolly Green Two Two, this is Cricket. Ah, sir, Crown just called and said you are not to attempt the pickup. You are to show Sandy Lead where the survivor is located, then depart the area. Jolly, you copy Cricket?" The young controller's voice was thick with dismay.

s.h.i.+lleto looked at Kelly. "You hear anything?" he asked.

SouthEast Asian (SEA) theater regulations prescribed that no ARRS helicopter could attempt a rescue without full backup.

As courageous as the rescue crews were, some early spectacular failures and losses had caused the clamping-down by higher headquarters of just what const.i.tuted a rescue package. To break the regulations was to invite a grounding. Occasionally, hard feelings had occurred over a situation just like this, when a rescue by a USAF helicopter was theoretically possible but had not been attempted. In a couple of cases, while a Jolly Green had hung back on orders, a lone Air America Huey helicopter had sped in and rescued the downed crewmen.

"Did I hear anything?" Kelly said. "No, I didn't hear any thing. d.a.m.n radio is acting up again."

"Sandy, you hear anything?" s.h.i.+lleto asked.

"Ah, negative, Jolly. Not unless you did." Sandy pilots had big ones, great big ones, and were never eager to give up a mission. The Cricket controller wisely remained silent.

"All right, gentlemen, we are in to see what we can see s.h.i.+lleto told his crew and started down. In the rear, PJ One, Dominguez, manned the left gun, PJ Two, Bakke, manned the ramp gun, and Bernick, the flight mech, took the right door gun. over their flight suits each wore a harness attached to what was called a gunner's strap, which could be clipped onto one of many anchor spots within the cabin. Each man wore an olive-drab flight helmet with boom mike swung up to his lips. And each man was equipped with a .38 in a shoulder holster and a bandolier of ammunition.

s.h.i.+lleto flew the HH-53B from east to west, barely ahead of the rain, while the Sandys crisscrossed the area, searching and trolling for ground fire. As the helicopter went into hover, Bernick swung his minigun back from the doorway to its stowed position against the forward wall and started the penetrator down from its hoist above and outside the door. Facing the door, the hydraulic control handle to start and stop the hoist was on the fuselage wall to the right. The handle pointed down like the large hand of a clock pointed at six. Swinging the handle up to nine o'clock lowered the penetrator, back to three o'clock raised it. The cable raised and lowered at 200 feet per minute except for an automatic slowdown just before the full raised position.

Bernick pulled the handle forward with his right hand, hung partially out the door, and put his gloved left hand on the cable to guide it. He wore a heavy linesman's glove. Because the HH-53B hovered in a 5-degree nose-high att.i.tude and the pilot could not see the cable or the penetrator under him, the man at the hoist had to guide the pilot on the intercom on where he should position himself "Forward five, left five, forward two, that's it, that's it. Hold.

Hold," Bernick said as he moved the hoist handle to keep the penetrator moving. Bernick had to yell because the rotor noise picked up by his boom mike was nearly overpowering.

Because the s.h.i.+p was directly above his cave, Wolf could no longer see it. He eased forward on his elbows until his head cleared the mouth of the cave, then rolled onto his back. He looked up through a rush of downwash air and saw the wide bottom of the rescue helicopter. The noise was deafening. He saw the descending penetrator. "Out here, come out," he yelled to Tewa. He started to crawl further out of the cave, and his right leg was numb. Must have gone to sleep, he told himself as his thoughts focused on the imminent rescue. He pulled himself forward with His elbows and pushed with his left foot until he was clear of the cave mouth and flat on the ledge.

Behind him, Tewa squeezed out of the cave and half-sat on the ledge as the penetrator, looking like a giant plumb bob, came closer. He crouched as it came within reach, and reached out. As he put his hands up to grasp the device, he jerked backwards and slammed up against the cliff face and started to slide down, as lifeless as a rag doll.

Wolf, lying on his back with his feet toward Tewa and the cave mouth, could see the tiny Lao was going to slide off the ledge into the jungle below. He rolled toward the cliff, raised his good leg and, hooking the toes of his boot around Tewa's waist, pulled his body cras.h.i.+ng down on his own. He had to thrash his arms to keep the two of them from rolling off the ledge. At the same time, above the sound of the helicopter blades and engines, he heard the popping and blam-blam of many guns and saw chips and pieces of rock fly away from the cliff face. One round spanged off the metal penetrator.

"Abort, Abort, Abort," Bernick in the right door, guiding the cable, yelled over the intercom. At the same time, both Dominguez and Bakke opened up with their miniguns at the jungle below. "The penetrator is clear," Bernick said. "Abort."

-jolly, they're shooting at you," Sandy Lead called.

"Haul a.s.s," Kelly ordered, but s.h.i.+lleto didn't need any further words.

An "abort" call from any crew member was heeded instantly. He was lifting straight up to clear the penetrator from the Cliff and to get over the opposite side of the karst ridge away from the guns- "Get that penetrator up, check for damage," Kelly ordered the flight mech. Bernick rotated the handle to Up.

Sandy Two again spoke urgently over the UHF radio. "Jolly, they're shooting at you."

"Roger, roger, don't we know it," Kelly replied. "You see where they are, Sandy?"

-That's affirmative," Sandy Lead said. "I'm rolling in On them east to west, will pull off South, I have you in sight, Jolly."

He paused for a second to see if anybody had anything else to say, then said, -Sandy Two, set up random, use both sides of the ridge. Keep Jolly in sight and watch the thunderstorms."

He was telling his wingman he could roll in from any heading he wanted to confuse the gunners, but had to keep everyone in sight, "You going to try again, Jolly?"

Kelly looked over to s.h.i.+lletO. "What say?"

s.h.i.+lleto was busy checking the stick, collective lever, RPM, rudder pedals, and the engine instruments for damage. He nodded his head.

"Probably. Depends on what the Sandys bring up and how well they do.

Get a damage report."

"How does it look back there, Sergeant Bernick?" Kelly asked the flight mech. "Everybody okay?" lie scanned the engine and system gages. They appeared normal.

"No problems, Sir. Hook is up and stowed. s.h.i.+p and crew fit and ready to go."

"Jolly will hold north of the ridgeline," s.h.i.+lleto told the Sandys. He turned to parallel the ridge for a last look before they dropped behind it. Sandy Two was in the middle of his run. Two glistening cans of napalm detached from beneath his wings and tumbled into the brush between the karst and the jungle almost directly beneath the cave entrance. A wave of burning gel splashed down on the tiny blue-clad figures running through the brush in the direction of the cliff.

Sandy Two pulled off sharply to the south as Lead rolled in from the West. "They're in the open," Two said, "trying to get to the cliff.

About twenty or thirty."

"Any big guns?" Kelly asked. "Yesterday there was a 12.7 here."

"How do you know?" Sandy Lead asked.

"By the size of the holes in our bird," Kelly said.

"Ha ha," Lead said as he pickled off two 500-pound bombs into the trees where the running men had retreated. He hazarded a quick glance at the ledge.

Kelly switched to Guard Channel. "Wolf, do you read Jolly Two Two?

What's your status?" There was no answer, Kelly switched back to rescue frequency. "Sandy Lead," he called, "do you see anything around the mouth of that cave?"

The A-1 jinked south, then pulled off to the northeast and pa.s.sed east of the karst as he climbed through 3,000 feet. "Two guys on a ledge,"

he said. "One seems to be moving, but not very well."

Wolf Lochert groaned in effort as he tried to slide feetfirst into the cave, clutching Tewa's body to his own. He had a hard time steering his numb right leg. His elbows felt raw and torn.

Bullets continued to hit the face of the cliff above his head, but because he was flat on the ledge, the lip prevented the PL from getting a clear shot. Soon, he thought, they'll be close enough to lob a grenade up here or fire a rocket-propelled grenade into the cave.

He felt a pain from his back and realized he had strapped on his AK-47 and it was digging into him and holding back his progress into the cave.

There was nothing he could do about it, he Slowly reasoned with fragmented thoughts. He had to get Tewa and himself into the cave. His tongue grew more thick and the throb in his head increased. He stopped moving and didn't notice Tewa's blood trickling onto his torn and dirty s.h.i.+rt.

He heard the roaring of the first A-1 as it swept by, then he felt the heat of the dropped napalm sweep over him like a wave of warm water. He thought he heard cries and screams from below, Then continious concussive bomb blasts.

Sandy Lead rolled in and released two more bombs in a line from those dropped by Sandy Two. The four bombs and the two napalm had blunted the attack. The Sandys had a dozen more bombs and napalm and hundreds of rounds of 20mm cannon sh.e.l.ls remaining.

"Wolf, Wolf, this is Jolly Two Two on Guard. Do you read?" Kelly tried again. Still no answer. "What do you see, Sandy Lead?" he asked.

s.h.i.+lleto kept the helicopter a mile above the ground north of the ridge "They're still on the ledge but not moving. I don't think they were hit but can't tell for sure."

"How about the guns? How about that 12.7? Anybody still shooting?"

"I'll make a pa.s.s," Sandy Lead said, "Two, cover me. See if anybody shoots." Sandy Lead rolled in and flew from west to east at 500 feet above the ground. He saw bodies on the torn earth and jungle where the bombs had hit, and he saw shrunken black figures where the napalm fire still smoldered. He looked down to his left at the karst ledge and saw one of the two figures feebly kicking his leg. Then he had to pull up abruptly to avoid flying into the wall of rain enveloping the eastern end of the karst ridge.

"n.o.body shot at you as far as I can see," Sandy Two said.

"Okay, good," Sandy Lead transmitted. "About the guys on the ledge. One is still alive. But I got to tell you something, Jolly. They both seem to be wearing civilian clothes and one could be Asian."

"Okay, that's okay," Kelly said to s.h.i.+lleto, "that would square with people on board an Air America airplane. They run around in civvies all the time."

s.h.i.+lleto nodded. He looked at the. heavy squall line cast of the cave.

It was moving in rapidly. "Okay, Sandy, we'll try again," he said.

"Coming around for another pa.s.s, north to south." He took the big helicopter due south toward the ridgeline and started down. "Okay, gang," he said on the intercom, "we've only got one shot at this. I'll pop over the ridgeline and go into a hover facing west. PJ One, stand by to go down the hoist.

Watch yourself. Get a positive ID from those guys. We don't want to be sucked in by any of those Russian advisers we hear about."

Dominguez rOgered and took off his parachute.

his equipment He checked wore 8 green mesh survival vest, two c teens Of water and a knife on a webbed belt, a .45 an Normally, automatic in a shoulder holster, and a slung CAR caliber 15.

there was no way to communicate with the helicopter except by hand signals to the man On the hoist. Kelly always made sure his PJs had a survival radio so that in emergencies the PJ on the ground could communicate directly with the pilot. Although the PJ could talk into the tiny radio, he could never hear the pilot speak because of the roar of the rotor downwash.

Kelly stood in the door next to Bernick and looked down.

They were about eighty feet above the ridgeline and barely South of it.

Twenty feet down the cliff face from the ridgeline was the ledge.

Dominguez opened a seat and mounted it, and gave the signal for Bernick to start the hoist motor and let him down.

Bernick kept up a steady chatter to s.h.i.+lleto about where to position the HH-53B. VJ on the hoist, PJ started down, You're drifting back, forward one, forward one, that's it, that's it. Hold, hold. PJ halfway down.

Hold steady."

Dominguez sat on One Of the unfolded petals, with one arm around the shank of the penetrator. He swept his eyes first to the survivors, then to the surrounding territory for Probable enemy positions.

He had the best view of anybody on the helicopter, for he could see in all directions plus up and down- Although this was his twenty-fifth time down the hoist, his pulse rate was high and his breathing rapidly- He almost regretted wearing a helmet sso he could hear the slightest Popping noise above the sound of the helicopter.

That meant someone was shooting at him. He motioned with his free hand to be let down further. He didn't sense he was being shot at, and riveted his eyes on the survivors below on the ledge. He saw two men, both in civilian clothes, both very dirty and covered with blood, one lying on top of the other.

Dominguez had heard the conversation about the civilian clothes and the Asian. He took the .45 from his shoulder holster and held it in his light hand, pointed straight down at his side.

"Hey, you guys hear me? Hey, you guys okay? You understand English?

Talk to me, Move your hand. Give me a signal."

The penetrator swayed slightly as he s.h.i.+fted his position and signaled for Bernick to put him on the ledge a few feet away from, the two men. A sudden wind current splattered raindrops on him. He disengaged from the penetrator and used both hands to keep the .45 pointed into the face of the bottom man as he approached. The man on top was definitely Asian.

, Dominguez said as he stood directly over the two men, the gun muzzle two feet away from the nose of the dirty and unshaven face of the Caucasian. "Hey, I'm not touching anybody until I'm sure what's happening here. We gotta move.

Hey, you alive? You American? Talk to me."

Wolf Lochert heard the voice and felt the first raindrops on his parched lips. He forced open his eyes and looked up at the figure looming over him. His eyes focused on the gun are and a great surge of adrenaline charged his brain and cleared his mind. He looked at the man holding the gun.

-Hey, yourself. You're the Scheisskopf that ate all my Fritos."

With relief, Dominguez holstered his gun and took out his radio. He tried to keep his hands from trembling. "It's okay down here. (he is American military," he told his helicopter.

He knelt by the two men. The penetrator lay on the ledge, the vibrating cable snaking in the wind up to the hovering s.h.i.+p.

"Anybody still shooting down here?" he asked Wolf. He had to shout to overcome the noise of the helicopter.

"Not after those A1s made their attacks. Get this guy off me. He's unconscious and wounded. I don't know how bad.

I need water." He spoke with effort against the downwash of air and sound.

The ledge was too narrow for Dominguez to get to the side of the two men. He remained at Wolf's head, handed him a canteen, and slid backwards toward the penetrator pulling Tewa off Wolf. Freed, Wolf drank heavily from the canteen, then rolled onto his belly and crawled after them. Dominguez stopped at the penetrator and signaled Bernick to pull it up two feet from the ground. He unfolded the remaining two petal-shaped seats and pulled a Velcro fastener that opened a canvas collar around the shank of the penetrator. Three attached safety belts dropped out, one for each seat.

"Can you make it on your own?" Dominguez called to Wolf Lochert. He wondered how long it would be before someone shot at them again.

"Yeah," Lochert said, and grimaced as he tried to push forward with his legs, and found the right one still numb and lifeless. He looked past the struggling men and saw the rain ma.s.s moving closer. He stopped moving, exhausted.

Dominguez turned and checked Tewa for the severity of his wounds, He found a hole in his left arm and chest where a bullet had gone through the fleshy part of his upper arm and buried itself in his chest muscles.

Messy, but he saw no evidence of severed veins or arteries. He could dress them properly once on board the helicopter and clear of the area.

He rose to his knees and started to lug Tewa onto the penetrator.

The second he rose up and was above the lip of the ledge, chips and dust rose from the cliff wall, something tugged at his pant leg, then he felt a smas.h.i.+ng jolt to his head, as if struck with a hammer, and fell into blackness, his body limp as an empty gunnysack.

1130 Hours LOCAL, FRIDAY 11 OCTOBER 1968 COORDINATES 5124.

ROYALTY OF LAOS.

"PJ's down, the PJ is down," Bernick yelled into his boom mike"Whaddya mean, down?" Kelly asked. I thought he already went down the hoist to the surface."

"in a calmer voice, "He's. .h.i.t, the PJ's. .h.i.t," Bernick said.