FNG Stories
Or
A Bandit Story and a What Not To Do Wolf Pack Story
by
Jeff Murray
Bandit & Wolf Pack 33
10/68-10/69
I arrived in Nha Trang and the 281st Assault
Helicopter Company in October 1968, having spent a few days in limbo with 1LT
Dave Mitchell at Dong Ba Thin awaiting a ride north. Not realizing we had it so
good Mitch and I complained until we got a ferry ride from Buck Yancey, who made
us keep our heads down so we wouldn’t get shot by the phantom enemy machine
gunners assigned to shoot all FNG’s he told us were out there. I was assimilated
into the Bandits and began flying a lot of missions all over the place, usually
with Norm Kauffman, Paul Morsen, or Ken Smith. I visited Kontum, Hon Tre Island,
that big hill west of Nha Trang everyone called (at that time) the Grand Summit,
dropped leaflets, flew a sniffer mission, and even an uneventful combat assault.
On December 1st, 1968, we deployed to Phu Hiep, and that first night
Brian Paine informed me that if this type of stuff kept up I could conceivably
spend an entire tour and never take a round. The very next day I was departing
LZ Courage when we took one through my chin bubble then the RMI and finally the
altimeter. Suddenly no one wanted to fly with me except Fred Sherrill, but I was
still enjoying the scenery. I even flew Martha Raye a few times, but if my
memory serves me every aircraft she flew in she signed with a big magic marker,
and they all crashed later. Returning to Nha Trang a few weeks later we began
flying Recondo missions, and getting to know those guys was what the 281st
was all about to me. It was all fairly routine but seemed like mission essential
stuff to me. Zipping into a tight hover hole and watching SFC Hinds emerge from
the woods partially concealed by that huge handlebar moustache of his reminded
me of every semi-combat movie on Vietnam I have ever seen. I had no idea he
would play a part in the biggest, and longest, mission in my short stay with the
Bandits.
On January 21, 1969 we had a few Recondo teams out in the Nha
Trang AO and I was lounging in my BOQ room when we got a call for an extraction
of SFC Hinds and his team. "A wounded soldier" was the extent of the briefing we
received, and off we went in aircraft 17360, crewed by Alan Johnson. Ron Lohman
was the AC, and I think I flew us out to the AO where we began a lazy circle
until the team popped smoke. The recovery sergeant on board, SSG Marvin Gies,
was scheduled to go to Hawaii the next morning where his wife was waiting for
him. Ron took the controls and got on the deck, flying about 20 knots toward the
team when SSG Gies said "Stop. We’re right over them." We did, but it was the
wrong "them." About 8 rounds were emptied into the bottom of the aircraft, one
hitting SSG Geis in the chest and one in the neck. Alan worked feverishly on the
gaping hole in SSG Geis’s neck and we had him at the Nha Trang hospital pad in
probably less than 3 minutes, but he died later that night. Our collective lever
had a huge hole in it so we traded aircraft and awaited a second attempt. In the
interim Fred Sherrill and Dave Mitchell had attempted a pick up and were shot
out as well, and finally a USAF HH-3 Husky with a winch extracted the most
seriously wounded man, a Marine hit as he was diving over a log, the round
climbing up his gut and lodging somewhere in his middle abdomen. SFC Hinds told
me later the Marine continued to stand and fight, without complaining, until his
extraction. "A real Marine" I remember Hinds saying. We returned later in the
afternoon with another aircraft, 17715, and went down once more, this time
safely getting three Recondo members out on a string. Another ship went down and
finished the extraction. I remember two things distinctly about this mission…(1)
Wolf Pack suppressed the hell out of that area. CPT Black was the fire team lead
and he was shooting so close to us that something bounced off my knee and ripped
a small hole in my nomex. (2) When we got our team back to the airfield, they
unhooked from the McGuire Rig and began greeting the ground personnel from
Recondo. When the second bird came in with SFC Hinds on a string, he unhooked
and climbed in the back of both aircraft and shook the entire crew’s hands. Then
he went to his team members and marched off into the darkness.
I soon wound my way to Wolf Pack and my most memorable C
Model mission was a combination of overconfidence and underperformance. I was in
aircraft 236 on a sniffer mission with 1LT Jim Holt, my rater of all people, in
the left seat. I was showing off, flying a bit too low in a heavy gunship, and
trying to emulate the slick moves of the slick driver in front of us, when he
did a cyclic climb over a small ridge. I did the same maneuver when all of a
sudden the airspeed and RPM started dropping, rapidly. With the nose in the air
and our upward movement really slowing down, I somehow made the correct
decision, which was right cyclic and right pedal, while I made a radio
transmission that sounded something like "Get out of the way back there, I’m
coming your way." We were now heading downhill but the RPM was somewhere near
the 6000 mark and there was this huge dead tree sticking up in front of us. Here
is where I got lucky. I climbed right again, but had to increase collective in
an attempt to clear the tree. We smacked part of it but as soon as we cleared it
I glanced at the tack and saw the needles well below 6000 and I dumped the
collective again. Poof, I was somehow over a streambed and able to descend
enough to get the RPM back. I then remember 1LT Holt thanking me for remembering
which foot to use because he thought we were all heading for the trees. I think
it had to be because I was sitting in the right seat, because I didn’t remember
enough about aerodynamics to know which pedal to use in situations like that
until much later in my flying career. I have a ton more of Wolf Pack stories but
this one was boring enough so that will be all for now.
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