Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War (17 page)

It was an encouraging story in VA-145’s ready room because Ken Hassett, flying with another wingman for the day because Dieter had the duty, was flight leader of the two Spads that chased away the fishing boat and provided protective cover for the downed A-4 pilot until his rescue. None of the pilots could have known there would be no such uplifting stories the next day.

Upon finishing his long day and night of duty and leaving the ready room late, Dieter went to his stateroom to get some rest. The night “seemed endless,” and he got little sleep. By his count he was a veteran of nineteen missions over South Vietnam, but those flights had been “easy…a good way to get broken in,” because he had faced mostly light small-arms fire from the ground. He knew that attacking North Vietnam with its network of radar-controlled antiaircraft guns and SAMs would be another matter. He was up before dawn for the ready-room briefing, held three hours before his scheduled 9:00
A.M
. launch.

A four-plane division led by Ken Hassett included Spook Johns and his wingman, Denny Enstam, who had been so impressed earlier with Dieter’s preparations for survival in the event that he was shot down. It turned out they would not be attacking North Vietnam, but only passing over its fifty-mile breadth. Their mission was deep inside Laos, where the United States had been conducting a secret war run by the Central Intelligence Agency, which the American public knew nothing about.

As early as 1955, the CIA had been orchestrating and supplying—using Air America, ostensibly a private company but in reality the CIA’s own airline, which employed many former U.S. military personnel as well as Thai, Chinese, and Vietnamese—a fight against brutal Laotian communists known as the Pathet Lao, who received direct assistance from the North Vietnamese army and controlled major portions of the country. After U.S. intelligence found evidence of North Vietnam’s successful efforts to expand and improve its infiltration and supply corridors into South Vietnam through the dense, remote Laotian terrain, Operation Steel Tiger, a covert aerial campaign flown by navy pilots from carriers in the gulf and marine and air force pilots based in Thailand and South Vietnam, began in April 1965. That year, it was estimated by the U.S. Defense Agency that the enemy was moving ninety tons of supplies a day through Laos and Cambodia on what the Americans came to call the Ho Chi Minh Trail, an interlocking maze of dirt and gravel roads, bicycle paths, foot trails, and river transportation systems.

Only a few miles off North Vietnam’s long coastline—as long as the Oregon and California coasts combined—U.S. naval forces in the Gulf of Tonkin were poised to launch extensive search-and-rescue operations.
Pilots who went feet wet had reason to hope for a rapid and successful water rescue. However, landlocked Laos, far from any concentration of friendly forces, was an isolated and unfriendly jungle empire with some of the most primitive living conditions on earth. Local villagers, angry at the foreigners who rained death from the sky, would hunt down and attack downed U.S. pilots before handing them over to the Pathet Lao. Among pilots, it was agreed that if they were shot down over Laos and not quickly rescued, they would be on their own in the jungle—and if captured, they were as good as dead.

The mission of VA-145 that morning was a target halfway into Laos at 17 degrees 35 minutes north, and 105 degrees 14 minutes east: an intersection of Route 27 at a river crossing used by trucks heading south. No one expected to score any vehicles traveling on this gravel road—in daytime, supply vehicles were usually parked and hidden under the jungle canopy so as not to be caught in the open by U.S. planes. Supplies generally moved southward at night. The mission was to crater the highway and river crossing with 500-pound bombs left over from World War II, making the intersection impassable for a while.

Planes from VA-145 had visited Laos recently. On January 29, Lessard and Hal Griffith were launched close to 10:00
P.M
. and were directed by a forward air controller (FAC) to a fifty-truck convoy heading for Cambodia on Route 923 through Laos. When they arrived, the area was already aflame from an earlier attack but “the VC were still trying to get the trucks through.” The two Spads expended all their rockets and bombs, and “got a couple more trucks.” On one of Lessard’s bombing runs, Griffith told him later, it looked as if there were three heavy automatic weapons shooting at him “all the way down.” Lessard, intent on his run, had no idea he was so popular. That experience was followed by a harrowing nighttime recovery in which a
Ranger
air-traffic controller confused the blips on his radar screen and directed Lessard toward the darkened sea until, only 100 feet off the surface, Lizard realized his plight and pulled up. That night, he updated his journal: “Like the LSO said, ‘That was a close call.’” About Laos, he added, “The public in the U.S. doesn’t know that we are bombing there and the government is trying to keep it quiet. Like I’ve been saying all along, a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

After more waiting, Dieter, already in his flight suit, gathered his helmet and other gear and headed topside to check his aircraft. His plane was parked with other Spads at the far end of the flight deck above the fantail, their usual place of banishment because they leaked so much oil and grease that they could foul the deck. He checked his fuel levels—the internal tank in the fuselage held 385 gallons; and an extra gas tank that planes used to extend their range, called a drop tank, was secured under each wing and could hold 300 gallons. Filled to capacity, Spads could stay airborne for as long as ten to twelve hours, although normally their missions ranged from three to six hours, much longer than a jet’s typical 1.5-hour cycle from takeoff to landing. (Owing to the long duration of their flights, VA-145 pilots had taken to sitting on a rubber blow-up doughnut—the kind used to relieve hemorrhoid sufferers. These doughnuts were specially ordered by the supply officer to alleviate an occupational soreness unique to Spad pilots. The appreciative VA-145 guys came to consider the doughnuts “worth their weight in gold.”) Dieter also made sure the arming wires on the bombs had been properly installed by the ordnance men so that when a bomb was released the wires stayed connected to the plane, thus being pulled out of the fuse in the nose of the falling bomb. With the wire gone, a small propeller on the bomb’s nose rotated in the wind; now armed, the bomb was set to explode on contact. If a bomb fell off with the arming wire attached, it would not explode. In fact, there was a cockpit switch to release bombs with the wires attached in the event of an emergency landing, ensuring that the unspent ordnance would not explode.

Over the flight-deck loudspeaker boomed the orders from the air boss signifying the start of flight operations: “Secure loose gear. Put on flight goggles. Stand by to start all jets.”

This morning the four Spads at the stern would be last to launch.

In the cockpit, Dieter buckled his shoulder harness and seat belt, and slipped on the supple leather gloves meant to provide some protection against a cockpit fire. He left the canopy in the open position, where it would remain until he was aloft. Unlike jets, which had ejection seats that would blow away the canopy before rocketing the pilot from the cockpit, the Spad had no ejection system. To bail out, the pilot blew the canopy off by activating an emergency air bottle, stood up in the seat, and jumped or rolled out,
hoping he had enough altitude for his parachute to open. At lower altitudes—anything under about 1,500 feet—there could be no safe parachuting from a Spad, which is why pilots often kept the canopy open during launches and recoveries for a quick escape in the event of a ditching.

As the jets were being launched, the Spads were started up under the direction of flight-deck personnel with the usual amount of backfiring and billowing smoke as the 2,700-horsepower radial engines came to life.

Dieter checked his instruments, and everything looked good.

He switched his radio to
Gray Eagle
launch frequency. “
Electron Five Zero Four
, up and ready,” he announced.

After the jets were launched, the Spads taxied forward. Dieter’s plane was attached to the number three catapult, one of two cats located on the angled deck. Pushing the throttle forward to the stop with the palm of his left hand and wrapping his fingers around a grip behind the stop to keep himself from accidentally pulling back on the throttle during takeoff, he pressed his helmet back into the headrest so his neck would not be whip-lashed, then with his right hand saluted the catapult officer—the universal signal that a carrier pilot is ready. Dropping his right hand back to the stick, he took a deep breath and exhaled evenly. At full power, the Spad revved up to a teeth-rattling 2,800 revolutions per minute and struggled mightily to break free of the steel bridle attached by cables to both inboard wings. The catapult officer—who was known as the shooter and wore a bright yellow vest for quick recognition—made sure the path in front of the plane was clear and everyone was ready who needed to be. Then, he crouched and froze like a statue, his forward arm pointed dramatically in the direction in which the plane was about to be dispatched. With a loud hiss and curls of steam escaping along the catapult track, the Spad was off.

Airborne in under three seconds, Dieter pulled back on the stick to bring the nose up ten degrees to begin a steady climb. He took his other hand off the throttle long enough to raise the landing gear, then reduced the power to 2,600 revolutions per minute for maximum climb. He also switched his radio to a tactical frequency, which the VA-145 pilots had been given during their briefing that morning.

Dieter happened to be piloting the first Spad launched. Once airborne, he proceeded about ten miles out to where the VA-145 planes were to
rendezvous. At 2,000 feet, he set up a left orbit and waited. The others soon joined him.

The four Spads went feet dry over North Vietnam twenty minutes after takeoff. The flight regularly changed altitude and heading so as to keep radar-controlled antiaircraft weapons from locking onto the inbound flight. The skies over the gulf had been crystalline blue, but the weather deteriorated inland. It was the coastal monsoon season, and they flew through a torrential downpour that lowered the ceiling and visibility. At one point the flight dropped to “700 feet in the soup” trying to follow the terrain while keeping each other in sight. After some tense flying—their cockpit maps showed low-slung mountains of 1,500 feet or higher in the area—they broke into the clear. They regained altitude, and soon crossed Mu Gia Pass in the Annamese Cordillera range. The rugged 1,370-foot pass was the gateway to Laos, and the principal point of entry to the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

Looking down into Laos for the first time, Dieter saw a vast jungle—the “deepest green” he had ever seen—broken by an occasional outcrop of whitish, sharply chiseled cliffs. He thought the terrain looked “impenetrable.” This was nothing like the tree-studded Black Forest he knew so well or the arid openness of Warner Springs, where he had displayed his escape and evasion skills.

As they continued westward, there were fewer jagged peaks and only occasional gaps in the jungle—now and then a field that looked as if it was being farmed. As the topography changed, so did the climate. Leaving behind the coastal monsoon, they entered a different season, one that was hot and dry. A strange “murky and yellow” haze hung in the air; it looked to Dieter like Los Angeles smog. He would find out later that it was caused by rice farmers who were slashing, burning, and clearing areas of woods and jungle in preparation for planting the next season’s crop.

Dieter’s panoramic tour was interrupted by a radio call from Hassett saying that he was experiencing radio problems, and directing the flight’s next senior pilot, Spook Johns, to take over the lead. In the number two position of the four-plane formation, Dieter hoped to stay where he was and be wingman for Spook, whom he considered a “great flier.” This was Spook’s second combat cruise, and even though he was still a lieutenant, junior grade—having been passed over several times for promotion—that
had everything to do with his “not making career-enhancing moves” and nothing with his proficiency at flying. (During one memorable happy hour at the Alameda O club, Spook, “pretty well tuned up,” grabbed the fox stole of squadron CO Mel Blixt’s wife from a bar stool. Yelling “Wild animal,” he threw it to the floor and jumped up and down on it.) To Dieter’s displeasure, he was ordered to drop back into his regular spot behind Hassett, so that Spook’s wingman, Denny Enstam, could take over the number two spot. Without keying the radio mike, Dieter swore loudly at the news. Only Spook, who happened to look over toward Dieter’s plane at that moment, saw his reaction: Dieter angrily shaking his head, and pounding his fist on the glare shield above the instrument panel. The way it worked was that a wingman stayed with his flight leader. The fact that Dieter reviled Hassett, and vice versa, meant nothing.

Lieutenant (j.g.) Malcolm “Spook” Johns of VA-145 in his stateroom aboard
Ranger
.
Family photograph.