The Ravens: The True Story of a Secret War (26 page)

It had been quiet for the first forty-five minutes that Heenan was on the ground. There were no enemy in the near vicinity and he heard no ground fire, but by the time the A-1s arrived the North Vietnamese had spotted the chute in the tree. A few scattered shots began to be fired, slowly building to a crescendo of automatic-weapons fire. From his position on the ground the most visible thing to Heenan was Raven 44, endlessly crisscrossing the sky above him, checking to see if it was safe for the Jolly Green to land.

Although Heenan could not see the enemy, he heard them yelling to one another - something which scared him much more than the shooting. He was armed with a .38 Combat Masterpiece revolver, but with only one hand in use he was forced to alternate between holding the weapon and the radio. Backed into the bush, he remained frozen, afraid to move lest the rustling leaves attracted attention. The sound of enemy voices came from behind him. ‘The worst fear of all was that I could not see death approaching me.’

The enemy were closing in, firing at the airplanes above them as they moved. The Jolly Green came in low to attempt a pickup. Heenan realized he had been blacking out intermittently through loss of blood when, without hearing the chopper’s approach, he saw it was right beside him. A crew member was siting with the rear ramp down, firing both mini-guns. ‘He was putting out a sheet of flame six feet long. It was really beautiful.’

But the Jolly Green had not seen him, and when the chopper began to take heavy ground fire it moved off. The Skyraiders made a pass and laid down smoke to give the Jolly Green cover for a second rescue attempt, but the drop had been misjudged and the smoke was put directly on top of Heenan, screening him from sight. The rescue mission was rapidly degenerating into a shambles.

Heenan had now been on the ground for almost two hours, and continuous bleeding meant he was beginning to black out for longer and longer periods of time. Unable to see anything through the smoke, and with enemy fire coming closer by the moment as they tightened the circle around him, he began to wonder if the recovery had been abandoned. He called Papa Fox: ‘How long do you think it’s going to be?’

‘Be good,’ Papa Fox told him. ‘We’re coming to get you, don’t you worry about it.’

In fact, Papa Fox was running out of patience himself with the way things were being run. According to the regulations he was obliged to give up control of the SAR the moment the lead Skyraider arrived on station, but the operation had degenerated into a frenzied muddle. If something was not done, Heenan would be dead within half an hour. Relying on force of personality over rank or regulations, Papa Fox resumed command of the rescue.

He called the Jolly Green on the radio. ‘Get on my ass, I’ll take you down there - let’s get the son of a bitch.’ Cranking down the flaps of the O-1 and flying as slowly as possible without stalling, he led the chopper through the smoke to where Heenan was hidden. The Jolly Green hovered over the bush, while a crew member lowered himself on a hoist.

Heenan scrambled toward him, and together they were winched up into the helicopter. The moment Heenan was on the hoist he felt his rescuer give him a powerful hug and was deeply affected. At that moment a strong human embrace was exactly what he needed, although in reality the airman was merely clasping him tight while he aimed an M-16 at the enemy who had come running from the cover of nearby bushes. The airman fired two full clips of ammo before the men were pulled into the chopper.

Later the Jolly Green crew visited Heenan in the hospital at Udorn, and he thanked them for saving his life. Papa Fox arrived with a bunch of grapes - most of which he had absentmindedly eaten - and Heenan thanked him for his extra-ordinary patience. He knew that Raven 44 had put himself ‘at grave personal risk’ coming in low to lead the Jolly Green through the weeds to pick him up. He knew that if Raven 44 had not been unorthodox and taken over the mission, he would never have been picked up. Papa Fox shrugged, somewhat embarrassed, and gave Heenan the remains of the grapes.
[122]

Fred Platt’s unilateral decision to change the Rules of Engagement, by hitting the off-limits enemy radio station, sent a frisson of alarm throughout the embassy. The assistant air attaché, Gus Sonnenberg, flew up to Alternate to find out what was going on. He spoke to Burr Smith, of the CIA, and questioned the Ravens. Platt shrugged: ‘I’m hitting enemy targets.’

Gen. Vang Pao took Platt’s part: ‘He kill many enemy.’ The general used the presence of the Downtowner to reiterate his argument for a wider use of U.S. air. With Long Tieng at risk, the whole of Laos was at risk. Maybe it was time to change the rules.

The embassy took the point. It called the CIA and the Head Raven down to Vientiane to discuss possible reinterpretation, and relaxation, of the Rules of Engagement. In the meantime, in the midst of all the talk, Na Khang fell on March 1, 1969.

It had been a particularly brutal encounter. Two battalions of the 174th and three battalions of the 148th regiments had been launched by the North Vietnamese in the offensive, while an all-out effort to save the site through air power had been staged as a countermeasure. So many U.S. aircraft were diverted to the scene that Ravens were unable to handle them properly, and American fighter pilots stationed at Udorn paid a high price in men and machinery.

Maj. Mark Berent, on his second combat tour in Southeast Asia, wrote home to a friend: ‘We’ve lost so many here it no longer seems real... if our birds aren’t smacking into 2-3,000-foot karst ridges suddenly rising from nowhere they are stitched end to end by 23mm, 37mm, or 57mm... Naturally I’m forbidden by all sorts of silly directives to mention exactly where I fly, but the astute reader of
Time
,
Newsweek
or the
New York Times
or any of scores of publications can obviously pronounce the four-letter word. It’s such a ridiculously piddly effort at such a high cost it borders on criminal negligence.
[123]

The enemy hid in small groups in the jungle, which swallowed the massive amounts of ordnance being dropped. AC-47 gunships poured fire into the jungle hour after hour, but did not stop the North Vietnamese in their attack.

At first it seemed to the troops at Site 36 that they were surrounded on three sides, and that the enemy had left the traditional opening for retreat. It was the Laotian way of war: when a battle had gone on long enough to decide its outcome, the losing side was allowed to withdraw with honor. When the battle at Na Khang reached its height the enemy crashed over the lines and the defending troops began to withdraw. But this time the North Vietnamese had also changed the rules. Instead of partially encircling the position, the enemy had surrounded it in a keyhole pattern. As the Meo poured from the fortified site and descended into the valley, they found themselves surrounded by two battalions who cut them down in a relentless crossfire. They were slaughtered without the possibility of surrender.
[124]

It was during this period of defeat in the spring of 1969 that Sullivan relinquished his role as ambassador and returned to Washington. He shared Vang Pao’s pessimistic view of the future, and reported that with the Meo forces depleted the next dry season was likely to bring the Communists major successes.
[125]
What had been conceived as a ‘holding operation’ in 1962, intended to buy time for a year or two while the North Vietnamese were dealt with, now became questionable, Sullivan thought. ‘Certainly, by the time I got back to Washington and again got in charge of the Vietnam business and got a picture of what was going on there, I came to the conclusion that this was not a winnable proposition.’

But the fall of Na Khang had driven home Vang Pao’s argument. It was a waste of time to bomb the enemy hidden in the vastness of the jungle, while self-imposed restrictions forbade any attack on them in towns that they had turned into fortified camps with antiaircraft guns and tanks. Either Gen. Vang Pao was to be allowed to hammer the enemy wherever he could be found, or the war was over.

The embassy responded that from now on the Ravens could bit any targets on the Plain of Jars if fired upon, and that enemy-held positions - including areas that might be shown on the map as villages or towns - would be considered for targeting. The ten-mile buffer zone along the border with North Vietnam was kept, while civilians remained strictly taboo.

Gen. Vang Pao was encouraged, with the help of his CIA advisers, to launch a counteroffensive code-named Rain Dance.

The air attaché’s office set about lobbying for increased sorties of U.S. fighter-bombers, and beefing up the Raven program to handle them. A new position was created to help smooth out supply and maintenance problems, filled by a lieutenant colonel. The Ravens were wary of this and greeted the arrival of
Mister
Mel Hart with skepticism.

Hart had twenty-six years of experience in the service and had worked his way up through the ranks. He had previously run the secret USAF Prairie Fire helicopter missions into Laos, so he knew the war. His new job was to oversee the site commanders, improve the safety program, and streamline the delivery of supplies and fuel, ammo, and rockets. He rotated around the various bases, ensuring the enlarged program ran smoothly.

‘There was no question of the quality of the work the Ravens were doing,’ Mel Hart said. ‘I had seen too many examples of people interfering with a successful operation, so I made no effort to interfere with the way the job was being done. They had enough trouble as it was without having some jerk from HQ laying additional rules on them. I made very few demands on site commanders. I couldn’t care less about the length of their hair.’ This was the sort of senior officer the Ravens could live with (although there was some annoyance that the new colonel drank his beer over ice - he drank a lot of beer so there was never any ice).

After the fall of Na Khang, Hart accompanied the air attaché, Col. Robert Tyrrell, to a sortie allocation conference for the 7/13th Air Forces in Saigon attended by officers from every branch of the air war. The object of the conference was to make sure the available air power went where it was most needed. Vietnam was the priority, but at this point in the war there was such an enormous amount of air available there was plenty for everyone. As the meeting progressed and the various fighter squadrons were assigned their sorties, it became clear that even after everyone had been given exactly what he wanted, there was going to be an enormous surplus.

The air attaché turned to Hart and asked in a stage whisper that could be heard throughout the hall, ‘What do you think we can handle?’

‘We can take everything they don’t use.’

Gen. Vang Pao’s small war was about to be given
one and a
half times
the number of air sorties allocated to the whole of Vietnam.

The number of Ravens in Laos doubled over the coming months to deal with the massive escalation of the bombing. Don Service, a major, was sent up to replace Dick Shubert as Head Raven at Alternate, at the same time as a fresh batch of FACs, including John Bach, Karl Polifka, Danny Berry, and Mike Cavanaugh, arrived. An extension to the Raven hootch had to be built to provide new bedrooms.

Service flew out over the Plain of Jars to the outskirts of Xieng Khouang. The enemy had moved into the town in force, together with artillery pieces, ammunition, and supplies. Gen. Vang Pao, together with Burr Smith and a guerrilla unit, had been choppered out to the side of the hill overlooking the town.

The airstrip of Xieng Khouang was on the plain, but the town itself - the provincial capital - was some distance away to the southeast in a narrow, mountainous valley. Service was joined by Lee Lue, flying solo in his T-28. It was a dull day, with little activity, so the two pilots decided to liven things up and entertain the idle Meo troops with a display of marksmanship. Lee Lue rolled in and fired a rocket into the hillside. Service followed suit, attempting to place a rocket as near as possible to the one fired by the Meo pilot. It was an amusing way to pass the time on a slow combat day.

The Meo moved their position to within four hundred meters of Xieng Khouang itself and the following day John Bach flew directly over the town, from east to west at an altitude of 2,500 feet. Inexperienced himself, he was accompanied by a Backseater who had been checked out only the previous day. Suddenly the sky exploded around them. Antiaircraft gunners had been waiting patiently, and now opened up in concert. A round of 37mm hit the cockpit and a further shell blew off the wing, and as the plane spun to earth it continued to be buffeted all the way down by multiple ZPU and 12.7mm guns.
[126]

Two of the 37mm guns then depressed their muzzles and began to fire upon the Meo forces on the ground. Gen. Vang Fao, trained by the French, insisted upon strutting up and down in front of his troops to show his courage, until his CIA aides pulled him to the ground, where they held him for most of the afternoon, much to his disgust.

Ravens from all over the area raced to the scene. Don Service was the first to arrive, with Karl Polifka a minute behind him. ‘It was a real zoo,’ Polifka said. ‘I was glad Don had beaten me to it by a minute because the roar of the 37s was so loud it was actually deafening in the cockpit. They had been there all the time but just hadn’t opened up before. I saw Don’s O-1 disappear in tracer so that you couldn’t see the plane. It happened time after time, but he would somehow emerge without taking a hit. It was really kind of scary.’