Operation Thunderhead

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

 

eISBN : 978-1-440-65288-2

1. Vietnam War, 1961-1975—Prisoners and prisons, North Vietnamese. 2. Prisoners of war—
United States. 3. Prisoner-of-war escapes—Vietnam. 4. Dramesi, John A. 5. Vietnam War,
1961-1975—Search and rescue operations. I. Title.
DS559.4.D63 2008
959.704'37—dc22 2008019857

VIETNAM

While at Seymore Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina, John Dramesi was flying F-105D jet fighter bombers when he received a call from his old squadron commander. The commander was going to Fort Lewis, Washington, a major Army base, to be the air liaison officer. As such, his job would be to coordinate the integration of the Air Force and the Army at the base. The conversation with his old commander was an interesting one, as Dramesi learned that he had just volunteered to be a forward air controller with the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Lewis.

A forward air controller or FAC was about as far from being a fighter pilot as one could be and still have something to do with aircraft. The FAC controls close air support missions to integrate the local Air Force assets with the infantry fighting on the ground. Since the enemy and the infantry can be very close to each other in combat, it takes a knowledge of just what an aircraft can do, and what the effects of the ordnance it has on board are, to safely engage the enemy at what are known as “danger close” distances. The FAC can also tell ground commanders just what kind of air support is immediately available to them, what it can do, and what the best ways to employ it are.

In Vietnam, many forward air controllers operated from small, relatively slow-moving aircraft such as the prop-driven Bronco OV-10. They directed incoming air support via radio and marked targets on the ground with white-phosphorus smoke rockets. There is also the FAC who operates on the ground, working very closely with the infantry as they're right there in the mud together. That kind of FAC is a ground-pounder with a radio and very big “friends” up in the sky.

That job was going to be John Dramesi's next assignment as his old commander literally yanked him from the squadron he was in and ordered him to Washington State. At that time there was an attempt in the military to get some of the best fighter pilots in the Air Force into FAC positions. That would allow the Air Force officers to help educate the Army about the ability of the Air Force to deliver close-air support to the fighters on the ground. There was a turf war going on between the Air Force and the Army as to just who would command the close-air-support units when they were working with the Army units. The Army felt that their commanders on the ground knew best just what they needed in the way of close-air support and how they wanted enemy units attacked. The Air Force knew best just how the aircraft and their bombs, rockets, and guns could be applied.

Although Dramesi had an opportunity to do some flying during his FAC assignment, he was a grounded bird: a pilot wearing boots and in the mud. After extensive training at Fort Lewis, John Dramesi deployed to South Vietnam with the 4th Infantry Division in 1966. This was the first time that forward air controllers had trained directly with an Army division prior to it being deployed to combat.

As a pilot, Dramesi was now getting direct experience in ground combat. He had worked with the men he would be fighting beside. FACs were armed with the normal weapons of an infantry soldier. For Dramesi, his primary weapon was hanging under the wings and in the ammunition boxes of the aircraft flying overhead.

Not a lot of pilots experience direct combat during their careers. That time gave him a direct knowledge of operating and living in the jungles of Southeast Asia that was very different from his Air Force survival training. And it would give him information that he would strive to keep from his captors later in North Vietnam.

As far as Dramesi knew, he was the only one at the time who had in-country and out-country experience as a forward air controller. That included his time in the 4th Infantry Division and his time later as an F-105 pilot bombing North Vietnam.

As a pilot, John Dramesi had already received experience on the ground during his survival training at Stead Air Force Base in Nevada. During that training, Dramesi and his fellows were not only taught how to live off the land, they were given experience as to just what they might expect if they were captured after a shoot-down over enemy territory. No pilot ever fully believes that such a thing would happen to him, but the training makes sure that each man has a least a small idea what could be waiting for him on the ground if he did ever have to punch out.

In the prison camp during training, Dramesi and the other pilots were thrown together to suffer various privations and an enthusiastic instructor cadre. When the instructors, acting as the part of the enemy, would interrogate the students, they knew they were giving the pilots but a taste of what to expect at the hands of the enemy. Many of the instructors had either directly known or studied the reports from POWs who had been held by the North Koreans. In some survival schools, some of the instructors themselves had been POWs. For John Dramesi, being a POW held no appeal whatsoever and he sought to escape at his earliest opportunity.

Not something a student usually did, John Dramesi successfully escaped from the POW camp at Stead Air Force Base during his survival training. He was the only one to do so that he knew of.

When Dramesi arrived at the camp, the students were supposed to organize for an escape. The students planned to crawl through a hole they'd noticed in the wire fence, one that seemed to have been overlooked by the instructor/guards. Dramesi could see the plan wasn't going to work, and he was proved right. When the remainder of the group “escaped” though the wire, they immediately ran into the instructors, who were there waiting for them. The instructors had known the hole was there, and the students could now experience what kind of repercussions they might receive for such a failed attempt.

The instructors had promised the students a free breakfast if they successfully escaped the camp. The idea of some food appealed to everyone as the rations at the camp were meager at best—another attempt to give the students some idea of what they could expect. No matter how unpalatable the food, the students were to eat all of it to keep up their strength to take advantage of an opportunity to escape, as well as to aid their resistance to interrogation.

Dramesi earned his free meal. During the debriefing afterward, he was told by the instructors that he should try not to shoot anyone during an escape. Shooting at the enemy made it more likely that Dramesi himself would be shot.

Durng the debriefing, Dramesi also had to explain to the instructors how he had managed his escape. Watching the guards go in and out of the camp gave Dramesi the first clue as to what his avenue of escape might be. It was dark around the camp; when the students walked out on a work detail—particularly when the group was going out with the camp commander—the guard at the gate came to attention. That meant the guard's attention was on something other than his immediate job.

When Dramesi went out on a detail with the camp commander, the guard came to attention as expected. Seeing his opportunity, Dramesi grabbed the guard's weapon and wrestled it from his grasp. With a rifle in his hands, Dramesi shot the guard and the camp commander. As a couple of additional guards gave chase, Dramesi shot them as well as he retreated from the camp, walking backward and firing as he moved.

The escape resembled a child's war game: Dramesi was firing on the move, the flames from his blank cartridges jetting out into the darkness, the sound reverberating through the desert. The only real problem was that an approaching guard wasn't stopping as Dramesi fired.