The Airlifter
Newsletter of the Troop Carrier/Tactical Airlift Association
Promoting and preserving the troop carrier/tactical airlift
heritage
www.troopcarrier.org, secretary@tacairliftassoc.org
October 27, 2016
Kham Duc Special
At our Tucson convention, Ernie Gassiott gave me a thick
volume of papers with a circular binding with the title Kham Duc/Ngok Tavak
that he had purchased at a reunion of survivors of the historic, but frequently
overlooked, battle and subsequent evacuation. He told me to put it on the table
where anyone who was interested could look at it, then take it home and use it
for research. I was happy to do so. Even though I already have quite a bit of
information about the events of those three May 1968 days, it would add to what
I already have.
My
first recollection of the battle was an account I saw in Air Force Times a few
days after the evacuation. Ironically, I had an appointment the next morning
with an Army recruiter in Macon, Georgia the next day to discuss switching
services as I was well on my way to becoming a private pilot and the Army was
crying for men with aviation experience to sign up for their warrant officer
flight training program. I got up and got dressed and was just about to head
out the door when I saw the article about the two C-130s that had been lost a
few days before. I thought to myself, Screw
this! If I switch to the Army, as soon as I get out of flight training they’ll
be send me to Vietnam and I’ve already done my time. Ten months before I
had left Naha AB, Okinawa after an 18-month tour that included several weeks
flying FAC/flare missions over Laos and North Vietnam as well as tactical
airlift missions all over South Vietnam and Thailand. The war had heated up
since then and several C-130s and C-123s had been lost to enemy action. I
decided to stay where I was at Robins AFB, Georgia enjoying the good life as a
MAC loadmaster on C-141s, drawing per diem and flying in and out of the combat
zone at least once a month and getting combat pay and a tax exemption.
As
it turned out, a few months later I found out that I was going back to war but
not as an Army pilot. Somebody in personnel had decided that my services were
needed back in PACAF in the back end of a C-130, only this time I was going to
Clark to C-130Bs. After I got there, I met a lot of guys who had been there the
previous spring, including my trailer-mate, Tom Stalvey. Kham Duc was a name
that was uttered with utmost reverence but with few details. It wasn’t until a
decade and a half later that I found out about and purchased a copy of the new
history of the tactical airlift mission in Southeast Asia that I learned some
details of what had happened. It turned out that I knew some of the
participants personally, some before the battle and some I met later. My
knowledge was expanded when I was on one of several visits I made to the USAF
Museum and purchased a monograph by Dr. Alan Gropman about the battle. Since
then I’ve been given documents, including the combat action reports by the
senior Army Special Forces officer and the commander of the 196th
Infantry Brigade battalion (2nd) that participated in Operation
GOLDEN VALLEY. The book Ernie gave me includes a lot more information, including
the mission reports of some of the C-130 pilots who participated in the
evacuation and the debriefing of TC/TAA member Maj. Billie B. Mills (later
colonel.) Most Air Force accounts (with the exception of Dr. Gropman’s) focus
primarily on the Medal of Honor flight made by the crew commanded by Lt. Col.
Joe M. Jackson, but in reality his heroic flight was a postscript to a dramatic
series of events that had already concluded; events that took the lives of one
C-130 crew and almost claimed at least one other. One C-130 pilot was awarded
the prestigious MacKay Trophy for his flight that day while two C-130 pilots
and two C-123 pilots were awarded the Air Force Cross (one posthumously) and at
least three others were nominated for it for their actions on what was possibly
the most heroic day in US Air Force history with the possible exception of the
low-level attack on the Ploesti, Romania oil fields in 1943. (Five Medals of
Honor were presented for actions over Ploesti, three posthumously.) Without a
doubt, it was the most heroic day in airlift history, bar none.
The Two Air Divisions
In May 1968 the airlift organization
responsible for operations in South Vietnam was 834th Air
Division, which had activated at Tan Son Nhut some eighteen months before
after Seventh Air Force replaced 2nd Air Division as the USAF
command organization in South Vietnam. Commanded by Maj. Gen. William G.
Moore, a veteran troop carrier commander, the new division was initially
staffed with officers with long troop carrier experience, although that
started changing as the war continued and replacements came in from other
commands. General Moore was replaced by Maj. Gen. Burl McLaughlin, another
veteran tactical airlift officer, who was in command in the spring of 1968. The division commanded two airlift
wings, the 315th Air Commando Wing, which was actually a
conventional airlift unit equipped with C-123s, and the 483rd
Tactical Airlift Wing, which operated C-7 Caribous that had recently
transferred to the Air Force from the Army.[1]
The division had operational control of C-130s assigned to three wings and an
independent squadron under the command of 315th Air Division in
Japan under the command of Col. Charles W. Howe, who was arguably the most
experienced airlifter in the Air Force.[2]
The division also had operational control over the 22nd Military
Airlift Squadron, a former 315th C-124 unit that had transferred
to MATS in 1958. The 22nd kept C-124s in South Vietnam for outsize
cargo operations. Although plans to base a wing of C-130s in South Vietnam
had been floated, an alternate plan had been adopted under which all airlift
C-130s were based out-of-country and rotated to bases in Southeast Asia, with
crews rotating for sixteen days at a time and the airplanes and their ground
crew for nine. Other personnel went TDY to the in-country bases for periods
ranging from two weeks to 179 days. Prior to the activation of 834th,
315th commanded airlift operations in Southeast Asia through
detachments in South Vietnam and Thailand. 834th’s area of
responsibility was confined to South Vietnam; tactical airlift operations in
Thailand were under 315th Air Division control. The 374th
TAW commanded four squadrons of C-130As based at Naha AB, Okinawa while a
fifth squadron based in Japan reported directly to 315th Air
Division. The 463rd TAW was based at Mactan AB, Philippines with
two squadrons of C-130Bs at Mactan and two at Clark. The 314th TAW
was based at Ching Chuan Kang AB, Taiwan with three squadrons of C-130Es.[3]
In the spring of 1968, each wing provided airplanes and personnel for three
834th detachments at Tan Son Nhut (C-130Bs), Cam Ranh (C-130As and
Es) and Tuy Hoa (C-130Es). In addition to the three wings, 315th
Air Division also commanded several Tactical Air Command rotational squadrons
that had deployed the Pacific in the wake of the Pueblo Crisis and Tet
Offensives which had occurred earlier in the year. 834th also
commanded the 2nd Aerial Port Group, which included three aerial
port squadrons, the 8th APS at Tan Son Nhut, the 14th
at Cam Ranh and 15th at Da Nang. There was a combat control
section assigned to 8th APS. 834th maintained command
and control from the Airlift Command Center at Tan Son Nhut and through
Airlift Command Elements at various bases around South Vietnam.
Communications between the ALCC, the detachments and the ALCEs was maintained
by radio, telephone and teletype. Mission requests were passed to the ALCC
which then passed them to the detachments and the two wings for scheduling.
Once a crew departed its home or TDY base, they maintained contact either
directly with the ALCC or with the ALCE at the airfields through which they
passed during the course of the day. Depending on the volume of traffic at a
forward airfield, communications were maintained through the aerial port
detachment or through an airlift mission team. At some airfields,
particularly those associated with Army Special Forces A and B teams, there
might not be an aerial port detachment, in which case communications were
directly with the ALCC in Saigon through radio or telephone. Command and
control at such airfields was carried out by the airlift mission commander, a
field grade officer serving on temporary duty from one of the offshore C-130
wings specifically to serve as 834th’s representative in the field.
The mission commander was often accompanied by a combat control team from the
8th Aerial Port combat control section at Tan Son Nhut to operate
the radio equipment necessary to maintain communications with the 834th
Air Division ALCC. |
The
Airlift Mission Team The airlift mission team was a development of airlift
operations in South Vietnam in 1966. Airlift specialists at 834th
Air Division saw the need for a team consisting of airfreight and combat
control personnel and sometimes aircraft maintenance personnel to deploy to
airfields where there was no airlift control element (ALCE) to support
airlift operations. The three 315th AD C-130 wings provided field-grade
officers to 834th Air Division on TDY to serve as airlift mission
commanders. Whenever a mission required a mission commander, an officer was
sent to the airfield along with whatever support personnel were needed. The mission
commander was just that; he was in command of all airlift operations at the
airfield to which he was assigned. They were different from the drop zone
safety officers who observed training operations in the States and at the
C-130 home bases. He was 834th Air Division’s representative at the
airfield where the operation was taking place. If the mission was at a
forward airfield, a combat control team went with him to provide a
communications link with 834th Air Division and with the ALCE
responsible for the area. Although airdrops were infrequent, if they were necessary
the CCT members would set up the drop zone and provide weather and other
information to the drop planes. Since most operations involved landings, they
provided airfield information to the arriving aircrews and coordinated
takeoffs and landings. Although they were qualified air traffic controllers,
there role in Vietnam was more of an advisory nature. Aerial port personnel
operated forklifts and other cargo handling equipment to offload the
airplanes and move the cargo away from the parking area while passenger
service personnel processed passengers. |
|
May 10-12, 1968
The
battle of Kham Duc took place over a three-day period in May 1968. Although it
is beyond the scope of our story, it began with the attack that overran the
outpost at Ngoc Tavak, an old French fort a few miles from the main Civilian
Irregular Defense Corps camp at Kham Duc. Kham Duc was not an unfamiliar place
to tactical airlifters in South Vietnam. Located in a mountainous area near the
Laotian border, Kham Duc was the location of a hunting camp used by high
Vietnamese officials. The airfield was blessed with a 6,000-foot asphalt runway
but it was not a US military forward base. Instead, the camp was a used to
train South Vietnamese, who were essentially militia, and for patrols along the
border some ten miles to the west. The village of Kham Duc and the camp were in
northwestern South Vietnam in Quang Nam Province a little over 100 miles south
of Khe Sanh and some 40 miles south of the A Shau Valley, both of which had
seen major airlift operations under fire in the preceding weeks. Intelligence
sources determined that the communists were building up strength in the
vicinity of Kham Duc and advised the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam that
the camp was threatened.
On May 10, MACV
commenced a reinforcement of the camp with personnel from the 196th
Infantry and the 70th Engineering Battalion in Operation GOLDEN
VALLEY. The reinforcement was ordered that morning and, within hours, personnel
and equipment were on the way to the camp. To support the airlift, 834th
Air Division sent an airlift mission commander, Major John (Jack) Gallagher from
the 773rd TAS at Clark, to the camp along with two combat
controllers, TSgt. Morton Freedman and Sgt. James Lundie, to provide
communications for Gallagher, provide airfield information to arriving
transports and to control airdrops if any were scheduled.[4]
Although there is no mention of them in any of the accounts, the airlift
mission also included aerial port personnel.
On
May 10, 834th transports flew some 600 men along with artillery and
other equipment into Kham Duc. C-124s brought in bulldozers and other equipment
for the 70th Engineers. Although the 22nd MAS was a MAC
unit based at Tachikawa AB, Japan, the squadron was under the operational
control of 315th Air Division, which also commanded the C-130 wings.[5]
In 1968, the 22nd was the only MAC airlift unit with a combat
mission. Additional troops and supplies were brought in the following day.
According to a account by an soldier who
was flown in on a C-130 from Hue-Phu Bia, immediately after their airplane came
to a stop, the “crew chief”, most likely the loadmaster, went out behind the
airplane and was immediately wounded in the arm by shrapnel from an exploding
round.
None
of the accounts mention aerial port or maintenance personnel at Kham Duc.
However, the Army combat action report states that there were 10 USAF personnel
at the camp on May 10. The mission commander and the CCT account for three and
the Air Force liaison officer with the 196th makes four. The identity
of the other six is uncertain. However, I received an Email a few months ago
from an aerial port veteran who says that there were aerial port personnel at
the camp. He also says that one was wounded. As for maintenance personnel, no
mention of them is made in any account but Lt. Col. Darrel Cole’s crew flew a
jack and six C-130 tires into Kham Duc on the morning of May 12. There may have
also been some Air Force tactical air support personnel present. The combat
action report of the battle refers to the tactical air control bunker next to
the command bunker. One list of personnel at the camp shows two Air Force
enlisted men and an apparent civilian who were members of a “Beacon crew.” One
member, MSgt Teddy Reiser, remained at the camp on May 12.
Ngoc
Tavak was overrun on May 10 and the following day the main camp at Kham Duc
came under mortar attack. Intelligence had determined that a large force of
communist troops had gathered around Kham Duc in preparation for an attack on
the camp. That evening, MACV commander General William C. Westmoreland agonized
over the fate of the camp. He was fearful of repercussions if the camp was
overrun and a large number of Americans were killed or captured. The size of
the American contingent at the camp had been increased from some 25 men to over
600 the previous day and additional reinforcement (32 men) had arrived that day.
Along with the CIDG troops and their families, there were roughly 1,800 people
at the camp. Westmoreland felt that Kham Duc was of little military importance
and there was no reason to risk the lives of its defenders in an attempt to
hold it. Sometime around midnight he decided to order an evacuation commencing
at first light. A message was sent to the commanding general of the Americal
Division (27th Infantry Division), Maj. Gen. Samuel W. Koster, to
prepare for a tactical withdrawal of all forces from Kham Duc over a three-day
period. The message included a recommended sequence of withdrawal:
1.
A Co, 1st Bn, 46th Infantry
2.
A Co, 70th Engineers
3.
Vietnamese dependents (200-250)
4.
CA/PSYOP USA (non-existent)
5.
Americal Battalion
6.
USAF personnel
7.
Command & Control Detachment
8.
MF Company (probably stands for “Mike Force”)
9.
CIDG
Westmoreland’s
original intention was for the defendants to be withdrawn by helicopter and for
834th Air Division to keep them supplied. However, that plan was
blown to smithereens during the wee hours of the morning when the communists
launched attacks against the outposts in the hills around the camp and overran
them one-by-one. The defenders who were able used escape and evasion techniques
to make their way back to the camp but not all made it. One group of three
never made it into the camp. They were picked up by helicopter several days
later. Some were killed and one, Private Julius Long, was captured. The
evacuation plan wasn’t helped by the weather. Kham Duc is in the mountains and,
as is typical of mountain weather, at daybreak the next morning the weather was
WOXOF. Once it started to clear, Army and Marine CH-47 and CH-46 helicopters
started into the camp to initiate the evacuation. The first CH-47 was hit by
ground fire and crashed right in the middle of the runway. The engineers had
been ordered to disable their equipment since it was going to be left behind.
They began working on one of the bulldozers (or a frontend loader) to get it
running. Finally, the driver, Specialist 4th Class John Powell, used
his “front loader” to move the wreckage from the runway. Some accounts have
stated that he was KIA, but these are in error.[6]
Powell was awarded the Bronze Star with V Device for his actions. By this time,
the fog was starting to burn off and the runway was open for fixed-wing
landings.
There
seems to have been a lot of indecision in Saigon and at the Americal Division Hq.
at Chu Lai. The initial plan to bring everyone out by helicopter fell by the
wayside due to the heavy attacks so the plan was changed to include fixed-wing transports
due to their higher payload capacities. However, that plan was also squashed
due to the heavy concentrations of communist troops in proximity to the
airfield and the severe damage suffered by the first C-130 to land. Early that
morning, Seventh Air Force commander Lt. Gen. William W. Momyer ordered a
“Grand Slam,” a code-word for an all-out tactical fighter effort in support of
the camp. Normally, Grand Slams were only ordered in North Vietnam. All
tactical fighter missions scheduled for both North and South Vietnam were made
available for airstrikes in support of the camp. A modified C-130E with a
capsule in the back filled with command and control personnel was ordered to
the vicinity to coordinate air traffic. Its call sign was HILLSBORO.
The
confusion is illustrated by the coded message Captain Willard Johnson, the FAC serving
as an ALO with the Americal Division received. Johnson was working with the
senior Americal and Special Forces officers. He recorded his thoughts on a
small tape recorder. He was informed that several C-130s were being dispatched
to the camp but he didn’t know why. When asked “didn’t you get the message,”
Johnson said no. He finally found the coded message and, after half an hour of
unshackling it, finally learned that the Americal Division commander had
decided to extract the camp’s defenders using C-130s. Shortly afterwards, the
first C-130 arrived. The crew had no idea that they were part of an evacuation;
they thought they had been sent to Kham Duc to deliver a lot of maintenance
supplies then to shuttle between there and Plieku. The ALCC had decided to use
them and another C-130 to shuttle troops out of the camp. That plan also went
to pieces. Communist troops were swarming all around the camp and they were
equipped with automatic weapons, including heavy machine guns and even 37 MM
cannon. A USAF A-1 went down but the pilot bailed out and was rescued by
helicopters. Ground fire damaged a UH-1 gunship and the pilot landed beside the
runway then, believing the helicopter was unserviceable, left on another
helicopter. The pilot of the ill-fated CH-47 looked it over and decided it was
fit to fly, then flew it out.
Meanwhile,
the Americal Division, MACV, Seventh Air Force and 834th Air
Division were all looking at the situation and considering various plans to
evacuate the camp. Their plans kept coming back to 834th Air Divisions
transports although for awhile it appeared that an airlift evacuation would be
suicidal. That conclusion wasn’t too far
from the truth.
Lt. Col. Darrell D. Cole By 1000 hours, no
fixed-wing aircraft had landed at the camp and no helicopters were getting
in. Earlier that morning, Lt. Col. Darrell D. Cole of the 21st
Tactical Airlift Squadron at Naha AB, Okinawa reported to Det. 2, 834th
Air Division at Cam Ranh Airbase with his crew for their mission. One of a number of mostly field grade
officers who had been called out of desk jobs for cockpit duty in transports,
Cole had become a veteran C-130A pilot after over a year and a half at Naha.
He had originally been assigned to the 35th TCS, but at some point
after the author left Naha, he transferred to the 21st. His crew
included Maj. Walter B. Farrar, pilot; 1st Lt. Edward Forys,
navigator; SSgt Kenneth C. Wheeler, flight engineer and A1C (E-3) Robert L.
Pollock, loadmaster.[7]
Their mission frag called for them to proceed to Kham Duc then make three
shuttles from there to Pleiku His load out of Cam Ranh consisted of two
pallets containing six C-130 tires and a jack.[8]
Their scheduled departure time was 0800 but they were delayed for an hour,
probably due to the helicopter wreckage on the runway since the fog had
dissipated by this time. They finally departed at 0900. No one had advised them
of the desperate situation that had developed at the camp.
The loadmaster was unable to do anything with the
passengers so Cole decided to take off with them and the cargo onboard.
However, just as they started their takeoff roll, a mortar round exploded
right beside the airplane. Apparently, shrapnel struck the rear tire and
flattened it. Shrapnel also did a considerable amount of damage to the right
side of the airplane. Cole continued the takeoff up to about 40 knots but
then decided to abort because it wasn’t accelerating. He turned around and
taxied back to the small ramp area to be clear of the runway. The loadmaster
opened the ramp and door and the terror-filled passengers abandoned their
weapons and equipment and jumped out of the airplane and ran into a nearby
ditch. The crew shut down the engines and turned off the battery then grabbed
their survival vests and weapons and got out. A jeep pulled up just as they
got off of the airplane to take the five men across the runway to the Special
Forces compound where the command center was located. Mortar shells were
impacting all over the camp. Once they got into the compound,
someone contacted Major Gallagher and he relayed the crew’s status to the
airlift command center in Saigon. The crew watched the scene before them –
mortar rounds exploding all over the place, F-4s hitting targets a few
hundred yards away. Using binoculars, they noticed that fuel was streaming
out of holes in the left wingtip of their airplane, 55-0013.[10]
Cole noticed an air of “tense calm” in the compound. The SF officers were
discussing abandoning the camp. While Cole was talking to one of the combat
controllers, an SF man handed the man a thermite grenade and told him to
destroy his jeep and radio gear prior to evacuation. Major Farrar wrote in
1994 that right after they were joined by Maj. Gallagher, some GIs approached
them and said that the camp was being overrun and they were forming an
“E&E party” to go out through the jungle. They handed the startled airmen
weapons and ammunition that they had just appropriated from a nearby magazine
and asked if they wanted to join them. One hung a bandoleer of ammunition on
Farrar’s shoulder. It was at that point that Farrar decided there might be a
better way. Cole had been on the CCT radio
talking to HILDA, the ALCC in Saigon and discussing their situation. The ALCC
controller told him to advise Gallagher that no further fixed-wing landings
would be allowed at the camp and they should prepare to E&E.[11]
At some point while they were on the ground (1110 hours), Maj. Ray D. Shelton’s
C-123 came in and picked up a load of passengers, mostly engineers, then took
off again. Shelton was awarded the Silver Star for the flight.[12] Although mortar rounds had been exploding
all around the airplane, none were close enough to do more than spray
shrapnel on it. Farrar suggested that they cut the blown tire off the rim and
try to save the airplane – and themselves. Although they had six tires and a
jack on the airplane, the engineer didn’t have the necessary tools to remove
the wheel. They discussed Farrar’s plan with the senior officer at the camp
and he agreed it was feasible. They obtained some bayonets and enlisted the
aid of a couple of engineers, who found a blowtorch. They were wearing flak
jackets and the work was fatiguing so everyone took turns. They managed to
cut through the rubber but the steel beading refused to give way, not even to
the blowtorch. The mortar rounds were getting closer and closer and finally
hit a howitzer that been firing from only 30 feet from their wingtip. They
decided it was time to go. The crew thought they could get the airplane up to
about 80 knots on the rim, which was enough speed to get off the ground. There doesn’t seem to be any accounting
of whose idea it was, but someone decided to load all of the Air Force
personnel at the camp onto Cole’s airplane. Neither Cole or Farrar mention
anyone making a decision. Farrar said that at some point Gallagher told him
that their radio equipment had become useless and they no longer had a
mission. There is some question as to just who got on the airplane other than
Gallagher, Freedman, Lundie and Captain Johnson, the Americal Division ALO.
Cole stated that there were ten passengers but Farrar said twenty years later
that he didn’t think there were that many. The two engineers who had been
helping them with the tire apparently flew out with them. There may have been
other USAF personnel on the airplane as well. |