Rescue at Phu Thoun

Vietnam

Once again it is my honor to share the story of another veteran. This one is unique in that it was written by the veteran himself. I only edited it. Hopefully, it will encourage others to open up and share their stories with friends and families, or here on my weblog. Keeping these experiences bottled up inside is not healthy. This one is submitted by LTC Robert Quinter, USMC (Retired), a fellow member of RallyPoint, a blog for all military personnel.

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On June 10th and 11th, 1970, the village of Phu Thonh was attacked by a North Vietnamese Regiment. The attack was later described as the largest massacre of Vietnamese civilians since the Hue massacre in 1968. Because of the dominance of the US and ARVN forces during the day, the attack was accomplished at night, starting at about midnight and ending prior to sunrise. During the attack, a team of U.S. Marine Corps helicopters, a U.S. Air Force gunship, and an Air Force flare aircraft provided evacuation of wounded and injured military and civilian personnel on a continuous basis, despite the intense combat situation on the ground.

Phu Thonh was militarily insignificant other than the presence of a small group of Marines working with the Vietnamese residents. Located southwest of Da Nang, between An Hoi and Go Noi Island, I believe many of the villages had relocated, or had been relocated, from the infamous “Arizona Territory” north and northeast of An Hoi.

The evening of the 10th, I was assigned to the Medevac package from HMM-161 at Marble Mountain. The Medevac section consisted of two CH-46s and two UH-1 gunships and was located at the Medevac “Hot Pad” on the western side of the Marble Mountain Air Facility. The aircraft were parked, preflighted and ready to turn on the pad, while the crews were stationed in a Butler Building (a steel Quonset Hut) equipped with a radio operator in contact with Da Nang DASC, a container of coffee and adequate bunks to allow the crews to sleep if no missions were necessary. Generally, the initial radio call from DASC was enough to awaken the crews, and the standard procedure was for the crews to proceed to and start the aircraft while the pilots in command of both the transport and escort aircraft remained in the line shack to copy the mission particulars and requirements.

Because of the hazardous nature of night helicopter flights in Vietnam, such missions were restricted to emergency missions only. Emergency was defined as the injured would not survive until daybreak. In retrospect, the emergency limitation was appropriate and necessary. Electronic assistance was limited to TACAN radios which provided the pilots with azimuth and distance and, in the event of high priority missions during inclement weather, ground controlled radar assistance could be requested Da Nang Approach/Departure Control. No matter how you got to the medevac site, the approach and departure from the zone were visual into unlit landing zones. Avoidance of obstacles around the pickup zone was strictly a matter of familiarity with the zone, if it was one of the many sites where units were more or less permanently located, or a map study on the way to the zone and the supported unit’s radio brief if the zone was a casual selection serving an on the move unit. In the blackness of the night in Vietnam, at a time where night vision glasses were only a glimmer in the eye at the development centers, the helicopter approach and departure were realistically more dependent upon luck than the skill and daring we pilots claimed.

On the night in question, our first mission had been run earlier in the evening to a site between An Hoi and Hill 55 where a Marine had been wounded in a firefight with an unidentified force. In retrospect, that unidentified unit was probably the same NVA unit that attacked Phu Thonh moving toward their objective. The call from DASC for the Phu Thonh mission came at about 2300. Jim Adams, my copilot, Dave Irwin, the Crew Chief, and gunners Wayne Wilson and Jim(?) Sewell immediately ran to the aircraft along with our assigned Corpsman. Chuck Sizer, pilot of the #2 aircraft, and I remained behind to get the mission information.

The initial tasking was for 5 emergencies to be picked up. We manned the aircraft, took the runway and departed to the south while climbing to our 1500 foot enroute altitude that provided us with enough height to avoid small arms fire.

Navigation was not a problem this particular evening. From shortly after takeoff, our destination was obvious. Even from 20-30 miles away, the burning village was like a beacon leading us to the site. Even the crew could see the village in the distance and our reaction in the cockpit was one of disbelief. As we approached, our helicopter escorts began updating our brief with the additional information they had received from the Marines on the ground.

First, the number to be evacuated had climbed to 15 and was continuing to mount. Our Marines and some of the Popular Forces had fallen back to a one lane bridge that crossed a river that bisected the village and were defending the bridge at both ends. The bridge was the only secure area to land with small arms fire, machine gun fire, mortars and RPGs being directed at the bridge from all quadrants. Those NVA who were not occupied attacking our forces on the bridge were going from village hut to hut, tossing satchel charges and grenades into the underground shelters in the huts, and then setting the huts afire. The friendly forces, besides defending the bridge, would make periodic dashes into the streets to recover wounded and drag them back to the relative safety of the bridge.

Jimmy and I looked at each other and I remember saying something very intelligent like, “Jimmy, it’s not going to get any better so we might as well get it over with.”

Flying directly over the bridge, I listened to some last information from the gunships and replied that I was beginning my approach. I lowered the collective to the deck, simultaneously banking sharply to enter our standard spiral approach. To those not familiar with the spiral, it is basically a power off fall out of the sky from around 1500 feet at approximately a 4-6000 ft per minute rate of descent. Done correctly, you were on final approach at the end of one 360 degree twist, and your entire maneuver had taken place over the friendly held territory. This particular approach was a textbook spiral and I indeed rolled out to the right on the final approach path to the bridge.

Unfortunately, the enemy forces were very familiar with the spiral approach, and as we rolled out, all hell broke loose. The approach path was engulfed in a veritable blanket of small arms, mortar and machine gun fire of such intensity that I knew we could not possibly land without the aircraft being hit by the fire. The normal procedure in this type of situation was to discontinue the approach and climb for the safety of 1500 feet, regroup and initiate another approach when the people on the ground and in the rest of the flight were ready. For some reason, that night I opted not to climb out, but instead made a sharp right turn down a street I saw to my right, stayed on the deck, below roof top level, and circled around through the village for another approach to the bridge. I radioed my intention to the guns overhead and was greeted with silence. Then I radioed the gun leader that we were somewhere near the zone and they were to enter their protective cover mode as soon as they caught sight of me. Our initial call that we were commencing our approach had not been heard, and our gun cover was providing general suppressive fire instead of the specific covering fire they provided when the Medevac aircraft was in the zone.

My circle through the village complete, I was back on a final approach path to land on the bridge. Perhaps caught unaware and waiting for another approach from on high, the enemy’s fire, while still heavy and constant, was not as heavy as the first approach, and we made it to the bridge for a landing. As soon as we touched down, there was a flurry of activity; wounded being brought aboard and then, the enemy having awoken, mortar rounds began landing on both sides of the bridge and machine gun fire came from our eleven o’clock and four o’clock position. The gun at our four gave a steady stream of fire directly below the plexiglass chin bubble of the aircraft. I inched my heels higher onto the rudder pedals, expecting to hear and feel the rounds tearing through the cockpit as the gunner adjusted his fire a foot back and six inches up. But he never did, and was soon silenced by fire from Wayne Wilson’s .50 cal on the right gun point of our aircraft.

The gun at our eleven o’clock kept firing, but was soon enveloped in machine gun fire and rockets from our helicopter escort. The explosions and fire from the rockets cast a dim light on the shadowy Huey as they pulled off their run.

In the back of the plane, the loading of the wounded continued with my Corpsman and crew chief both running out onto the bridge to assist the other Marines in loading the wounded aboard. Finally loaded to the point where no more would fit on the aircraft, we lifted off and began climbing to the relative safety of out en route altitude. By the time we dropped our wounded at the medical facility in Da Nang, three more missions had been called in.

"Puff The Magic Dragon"

0500, 11 June 1970. Cattlecall 32 and crew make our last pick up at Phu Thonh. We have been flying all night. Although the first mission had been the most intense, each of the subsequent missions was in the face of withering small arms fire. By the third mission the NVA had apparently run out of mortar rounds. The Air Force had arrived with Spooky, the famed Puff, with their ability to place a round on each square foot of a football field in one run. By our second mission, Basketball, an Air Force flare ship was also there. Our excellent Marine Corps gunships had worked out all night and were crucial to our success. All of the Marines who had been in the village had been medevaced and were in the hands of medical personnel. This last run, again full of Vietnamese Popular Forces and villagers, would not be the last of the wounded and injured brought out of the village; other aircraft would be doing that all day, but we, Cattlecall 32, were done for the night.

All land based hospital beds in the Da Nang area had been filled during the night, so this last run was to the U.S. Navy Hospital Ship that happened to be in the Da Nang harbor. The sky had turned grey instead of black, and when we landed aboard the ship, the normal red lights on the helipad were augmented by the soft light of nautical sunrise. Looking out my side window, I saw my crew chief, once again out of the aircraft carrying one of the injured Vietnamese. The load was not heavy since it was an infant who had been caught up in the destruction war brings. Gently he handed the baby to a Navy Physician standing on the deck watching the offload of the aircraft.

We proceeded back to Marble Mountain. Walking out of the cockpit, I was struck by the bloody mess that greeted me in the cabin. Bandages, clothing, and all types of first aid equipment were indicative of the frantic pace that the Doc and my crew had worked all night. We were all exhausted, but somehow high on the adrenaline rush that a night like ours generates. At the line shack and walking to the ready room, the looks and comments made it evident that everyone knew of the mission and our night. In the ready room, Ron Rench greeted me and shook my hand. From him I learned that everyone from the Wing and Division Headquarters down had been monitoring our progress. A back up division of aircraft and a Company of Marines was on alert as a rapid reaction unit in the event our mission went bad. As it turned out, all that any of them had was a long night punctuated by the radio transmissions that are generated by an action like occurred in Phu Thonh.

The Cattlecall 32 crew was appropriately awarded. The crew chief and corpsman each were awarded the Silver Star, the Gunners and copilot all received Distinguished Flying Crosses, and I received a Silver Star.

Fast forward to 1976. I’ve flown a C-131 from NAS New Orleans to NAS Oceana. My copilot has kindly invited me to visit with a Navy officer friend of his for dinner. We spent a wonderful evening talking Navy and Marine Corps talk and, in the course of the conversation we discover our Navy officer host was in Vietnam during my tour. In fact he served on a Navy Hospital Ship. He begins telling me of his most memorable moment. It seems a Marine medevac aircraft had landed filled with Vietnamese civilians. One of the crewman had walked from the aircraft carrying a baby that had been injured…

Grown men do cry.

                                                     --Bob Quinter
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