Vietnam II: A War Novel Episode 3 (V2) (4 page)

Captain William Bell

F-15 Driver

Kadena Air Force Base, Okinawa

Once we worked out our tactics regarding Vietnam’s air force we turned our attention to a bigger and just as deadly threat: surface to air missiles.  Surface to air missiles came in a variety of forms and until we took every inch of land we could face the worst of them and even after the whole country was pacified all it took was one guy with a shoulder fired launcher with a charged battery to take a shot at one of our aircraft.  Surface to air missiles were insidious and they would never go away.  All we could do was prepare.

Surface-to-Air missiles or SAMs had been around since the 1950s.  They had been a threat to American aircrews in every corner of the world from the U-2s over Russia, F-1s over Korea, B-52s over Hanoi and F-16 over Panama in 1989.

SAMs came in a variety of forms.  However, there are two basic types which included tactical and strategic SAMs.

SAMs typically sought their targets using two basic forms of tracking: heat seeking and radar.

A tactical SAM was a defensive weapon meant to protect troops from aircraft.  They ranged in size from man-portable shoulder fired SA-7 or Stinger to larger ones like the SA-6 or SA-8 that moved on vehicles.  The smaller missiles tended to be heat-seeking while the larger ones use the more lethal radar.  There was a lot of talk about all the Stinger missiles that we pumped into Afghanistan during the Soviet conflict there.  A lot of those were not used and unaccounted for.  Some pilots feared that those Stingers might show up in Vietnam in the hands of the PAVs.

A strategic SAM was a larger, meaner version and meant to protect high value targets.  A strategic SAM like the SA-2 would be something you erected around an airfield or capital.   They were normally fixed and were typically much larger than their tactical counterparts. The ones that can be moved take time to dismantle.  Moving them also took time and made them easier to target, but it took some time to pack them up and set up in a new location.

Heat-seekers did just what the name implies and followed the heat from your engines.  The hotter the better so when engaged you tried to keep them as cool as possible.
 
The early ones had to chase you from behind and could be defeated with flares.  The newer ones could get you from the front and are smart enough to ignore flares.  The heat seekers were typically small and have a short range and a small amount of explosives strapped to them.  That meant that even if they hit you they might not bring your fighter down.

The radar guided missiles were a whole different animal.  They came in a variety of lethal flavors including beam riders, active, semi-active, command guided or a combination of each.  The way they worked is they used a search radar to find you and a tracking radar to guide the missile in for the kill.

You could defeat those by jamming their radar or dropping chaff or both.  Chaff was a large cloud of shredded metal like strips of tinfoil.  The newer ones knew the difference and would ignore chaff, too.

The larger strategic SAMs were the size of telephone poles and carried hundreds of pounds of explosive.  They did not even have to hit you to turn your airplane into pieces.  All it took was a near miss.

How do we counter the threat? 

First, the Navy was going to hit the sites that we knew about with cruise missiles.  This is only a 90 percent solution however.  The Vietnamese were smart and a smart enemy will keep some hidden.

That is why we deployed countermeasures like electronic warfare.  Aircraft like the EA-6Bs carried powerful jammers.  They covered a wide area and gave us the ability to protect us as we made our strikes.

The other big player in the electronic warfare arena was the
F-4G "Wild Weasels."  This aircraft’s primary job was to hunt SAM sites.  They were armed with High Speed Anti-radiation Missiles or HARMs.  Basically, a HARM was a missile with a built-in radar detector that homes right in on SAM sites.  The fighter and bomber guys loved the Wild Weasels.  Having them in the skies with you made you feel a lot safer.

Our aircraft had built in countermeasures as well. Fighters like ours and the F-16 had an automated pod we turned on which worked automatically.  Bombers like the B-1 and the B-52 also had some pretty impressive jammers run by an Electronic Warfare Officer in the back.  The EWO’s job is to listen to the beeps and squeaks in their headset while cross referencing a bunch of squiggly lines on a scope and determine what threats or friendlies are out there. 

In any case the SAMs were going to be a bigger threat than enemy fighters.

Senior Airman Khoa Tran

Special Operations

The Central Highlands

Everyone was wet and tired.  It seemed to rain all the time here.  Jeff was on the radio with Control all the time.  He said that there was a typhoon out in the Gulf of Tonkin and we were only getting a fraction of the weather.  I couldn’t imagine how bad it must be closer to the eye of the storm.  We all tried to keep busy.

Judge drank with the Degas.  Todd and Scott made a map of possible targets according to intel from the Degas and some friendlies they produced.  A lot of the locals were pretty anticommunist.  Mike spent all day listening the Voice of the Gulf on the radio.

“How can you listen to that all day?”  I asked him.  Whoever she was she made the same announcements over and over again in Vietnamese, Chinese and English.

“I think I’m in love.  She’s probably the prettiest Vietnamese girl ever.”

“She’s American.”  I told him.  He looked confused so I continued.  “I mean Caucasian.”

“How do you know?”

“I can tell by her accent.”

“I still love her.”

I spent the day talking to the Degas who spoke English or Vietnamese.  I caught some rack time as much as could.  Judge told me never to pass up the chance to eat, use the bathroom or get some sleep.  The deadline was hours away and I was trying to sleep under a tree in the rain without much success when I overheard the operators grumbling about something new.

“Its mission failure.”  Todd said.

“Its mission impossible.”  Scott agreed raising the bar.

“What’s wrong?”  I asked inserting myself in their conversation.

Both men were stared at each other in silence.  I felt like I had overstepped and started to leave.

“They want us to go in, raid this prison and get our guys out, assuming there are any, and they want us to do it minutes before the air strikes begin and they want us to do it with the smallest footprint possible.”  Todd explained.

“We need a new plan.”  Scott said.

“You can’t do it?”  I asked regretting the words as soon as they came out of my mouth.

“Oh we could do it.”  Scott said looking annoyed and scowling at me as if I questioned his manhood.  “Failing some spectacular casualties on the front end, getting back out would be next to impossible.”

“Assholes!”  Todd said.

I had never heard anyone talk about leadership like this before.

“We would need a brigade to do this right.”  Scott said giving me more background.  “Especially with the intel we have.  All these satellite photos are great, but they do not really tell us how many enemy soldiers are bunkered there in addition to the prison guards.”

Scott and Todd looked at each other each hoping the other had a plan if I had to guess.  They both looked deflated.

“What about the Degas?”  I said without thinking.

“The Montagnards?  Would they be willing to throw in with us?”

I shrugged because I did not really know.  Those people looked like they had had a rough time of it already.  You would think they would be cautious about joining the American cause again.

“Ask them.”

I did.  When I came back to give them the answer the operators and Judge were waiting in anticipation making me feel important albeit momentarily.  I prepared myself for a long conversation.

“He says that they will give us four hundred men.”

“Great,” Scott said looking pleased.

“What does he want?”  Todd asked suspiciously.

“North Carolina,” I told them.

Todd looked puzzled.  Judge nodded knowing exactly what I meant.  Luckily Judge explained it all for me.

Unlike the general population of South Vietnam, who were given sanctuary by the U.S. government to flee their home countries and immigrate to America, no such opportunity awaited the Montagnards.  They lacked significant support from the U.S. State Department, and forgotten by the country that they had fought with, the Montagnards languished for over a decade before anyone noticed. 

In early 1975 during the final days of the war, the Montagnards found themselves in a difficult spot.  They had aligned themselves alongside the French and Americans for four decades in part due to being oppressed as an ethnic and religious minority in their homeland for the prior 50 years.  In April 1975, the RVN approached them with a proposal.  At the U.S. Embassy in Saigon the Montagnard leaders met with the American and RVN government.  The Montagnards were asked to fight against the conventional Communist forces as rear area guerrillas in much the same way the Vietcong had fought the American army.  In exchange they would be given food, arms, supplies and eventually sanctuary.  This would doom the Montagnards.  The North Vietnamese committed atrocities in the Montagnard territories.  When South Vietnam fell and the Americans left, the Montagnards found themselves without any friends.

Throughout the late seventies, a small army of thousands of Montagnard fighters continued to fight the communists without external support.  Even after their towns fell one by one to the PAVs the Montagnard fighters regrouped in the jungle and continued running and resisting.  By 1980’s, with their weapons and ammunition exhausted the Montagnards were just running.

Following the communist victory, the new government was hard on the Montagnards.  In retaliation for not surrendering and because of the Montagnard’s strong religious beliefs the communists began a program of systematic repression and genocide against the Montagnards that continued into the 1980s.  The Montagnards were forced into reservations and denied medical care and supplies.  All books written in the Montagnard language were burned especially Bibles.  The communist government called this “cultural leveling,” but in reality they were erasing their entire culture.  The population of the Montagnards went from 7 million when the war ended to a few hundred thousand by the time we reached them in the mountains in 1990.

“The Montagnards fought on after the US gave up and after the RVN gave up.”  Glun told me.  “We hid up here in the mountains when the cities fell.  We regrouped in 1976 and fought back for three years until the supplies and ammunition ran out.  Then they hunted us.  Chased us down like animals.”

They were all but forgotten when suddenly in 1986, over 200 Montagnards marched into Thailand and were taken to a refugee camp.  This discovery began an initiative of a number of Vietnam veterans, including current and former Special Forces operators the Montagnards had served with, to resettle them.

The American representatives that travelled to Thailand gave them a choice of coming to California or North Carolina.  The Montagnards chose North Carolina to be close to Fort Bragg and the Special Forces brothers they felt kinship with.  Integrating the refugees into American life began immediately and within weeks of coming to America Veteran and church groups found the Montagnards homes and jobs.  

“What do they have?”  Todd asked.

“147 AK-47s.  25 M-16s.  Two M-60s.”  I was translating from a list Glun gave me.  “Oh and some M-1s.”

“What do they need?”

“Ammo,” I said.

“Get on the horn.”  Todd told Jeff.  “Get them more rifles too.”

“Do you think Control will come through?”  Scott asked.

“I don’t know why they wouldn’t.  It’s a fucking bargain compared to dropping an Air Brigade in here.”

Boatswain’s Mate Ridley Ford

USS Missouri

Gulf of Tonkin

The rain stopped.

The typhoon had moved inland.

The deadline came and went that morning.  We got some news pumped in from the Armed Forces Network and the Vietnamese government would not acknowledge the existence of POWs.  They volunteered to allow Soviet inspectors into their country on a limited basis.  The President announced that we were going to war.

We weren’t ready.  All of the support and surface ship were scattered around the area.  All of them were recovering from the storm.  On the Kennedy a Tomcat was damaged beyond repair.  On the Saratoga the main radar dish was damaged by wind.  One of the tankers had a leak.

The Missouri was missing several antennas, torn off by the wind, some of them vital to our firing solutions.  A couple of the smaller turrets had taken some damage from flying debris.  They would have to be reworked and calibrated before they could fire.

By the book it would take a few days to fix all the damage. 

We only had hours.

We all went to work.