Gunship Pilot by Robert F. Hartley

Author:Robert F. Hartley [Hartley, Robert F.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781489703958
Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
Published: 2015-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

The author with the captured .51 cal. Antiaircraft gun and holding an AK-47

It was now December and the missions continued to come down. The NVA was continuing to press the offensive in our area of operations. Russ Juleen was my wingman and we were launched on a fire mission for a Special Forces camp northeast of Song Be. When we arrived over the camp, we called them to find out their situation and were told that they were getting sporadic mortar fire from a group of trees about 2 kilometers north of their camp. They said that over the last few days the enemy would fire a few rounds into their compound at different intervals during the day and they were tired of it. The Green Beret on the radio said that because of a slight valley between them and the trees, they actually saw the bad guys set up the mortar on the south side of the trees that morning, fire several rounds and then disassemble the weapon and disappear back into the trees. Their camp was just outside the range of the normal “Tube” artillery, so, they had called for support from us.

The treeline in question was a very thick grove of trees about 50 meters long on each side and square in form. This grove was surrounded on all sides by wide open fields of low grass that would allow us to see anyone or anything leaving or entering the trees. In essence, whoever was currently in those trees was now trapped there with no avenue of escape.

Russ and I decided to attack the treeline from the east so that the sun would be behind us allowing better visibility into the trees. Between us, we had 152 rockets with a mix of 10 pound and 17 pound warheads, 3000 rounds of 7.62mm minigun ammunition and 300 rounds of 40mm grenades. Each of the rockets had a bursting radius of between 10 and 15 meters, so, the ordnance we would expend on this grove of trees would be sufficient to kill anything or anyone in there many times over.

We set to our task. We made rocket run after rocket run. With each pass, the trees were showing the damage. Many of them had been blown down while others were stripped of their bark and treetops. Just for good measure, we reset our ROCKETS circuit breakers and made one last run on SALVO and 19 pair. Using this procedure, we were able to fire the last few rockets that had hung up on our first runs. We then proceeded to fire all of our 40mm grenades into the area and half of our minigun ammo as well. We'd save the other half for self protection on our trip home.

We were quite pleased with the devastation we had wreaked on this small grove of trees and we made one last, low pass over it to survey our handiwork. I passed over the western edge of trees and looked down as I started a slight climb.

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