Hard Landing

                                                               by Thomas Dykes

                                                                  May 31,2009

                                                               UH-1H 66 -16466

 

                                                                   The Crew

   John David Miles (aka Strange Stan) was my right seat. By some stroke of luck the company area medic (Gene Lindsey) needed his flight minimums so he flew as gunner. It was the crew chief’s (Mittag) first day in that position. 

 

  It was May 31 1969, and just another average morning at Flanders. Darkness still covered the field as we walked the narrow bridge to the flight line.  The heat and odor of burning JP4 filled the air as Sidekick gun ships were departing for their assigned missions.

  Our mission along with another slick and two of the departing Sidekicks was to proceed to Ban Me Thuot in support of the local MACV forces. Upon arrival we were briefed on the mission, which was to first make a false insertion and then insert a Vietnamese LRRP Team quietly in an LZ Northeast of Ban Me Thuot. Although the area had been cold with no enemy activity encountered for over a month, we would have a Sidekick light fire team flying cover but there would be no prep of the LZ.

  The quiet ended on short final to the LZ when I heard automatic weapons fire. The sound was so loud and close I immediately thought it was from the cargo compartment and turned to yell at the Vietnamese LRRP team to make them stop firing. At that moment I recognized the rhythm of fire was not that of an M-16 but that of an AK-47. My eyes immediately went to the instruments for power settings as I lowered the nose to abort the landing.  As I assessed the angle we would need to clear trees in the aborted landing, we received another burst of AK fire. I did not hear this burst, but I felt a blow to my head as if hit with a baseball bat. I must have gone unconscious because I don’t remember the aircraft impacting the ground.

  I remember thinking “ What will Diane do now.“ We had just married five months before I left for Vietnam. It has always puzzled me as to when that thought took place. Was it before I lost consciousness, during the unconscious state or after I regained consciousness. At any rate the brain must have thought we were done.

  Through what seemed like a fog, I saw John Miles laying over the radios between us, and assumed he had been killed. The windscreen on his side had been shattered by the fire we were taking from his side of the aircraft and after we hit the ground he had rolled to the left over the radio console for more protection from his right side armor plating. As I continued to regain awareness of my surroundings but still dazed as to what had happened, Gene Lindsey and the Mittag were pulling me from the aircraft. Miles then crawled over the radio console, while shutting off fuel and electrical power, to also exit the left cockpit door. John David then did his [John Wayne] imitation and chased down two of the Vietnamese LRRP Team members running towards a line of bushes to our left. He grabbed them by the back of the neck, turned them around, and brought them back to the aircraft to set up defensive positions. The remainder of the team followed. I distinctly remember after they laid me down with my head on the left skid, which was now like an armrest, and as he wrapped bandages around my head, Lindsey staring into my eyes and saying,  “He’s going into shock”. This of coarse was a shock. Miles stated that he then looked at me and when Lindsey gave him the look and shook his head he thought I was dying. 

  At this point John David crawled back into the aircraft, restored electrical power and made his infamous radio call to the Sidekicks, “Mr. Dykes has been shot”. The Sidekicks having seen the rotor rpm slowing and John Wayne running around in the LZ gathering up the LRRP team, had already assumed something was not right and started their gun runs. The tree line (A rubber Plantation) to our right and front, along with the line of bushes to our left began to explode. Miles said he then directed the Sidekicks to engage a position to our rear from which we were taking fire. The Sidekicks were now taking back the advantage and raining Mini Gun bullets, 2.75 rockets and 40 mm grenades on the enemy positions, thus renewing what courage had been stolen by the enemy’s earlier fire. Their Crew Chiefs and Gunners hanging out the doors with M-60s continuing the suppressive fire as they broke at the bottom of their runs. Close air support, viewed from the ground, gave me a whole new perspective and respect for what life was like for the grunts. From the air it was a silent movie but this added sound, fear and adrenalin. The Sidekick attack continued, for what seemed like forever at the time, when we saw a helicopter approaching the LZ. It was our other [John David], JD Lynn in the Command and Control ship. He had dropped the MACV commander on a close by firebase and returned to extract us. He aborted his initial approach, broke left, made another approach and landed to the left of our aircraft. I vividly remember the run to his aircraft and diving into the cargo compartment. I think I was still sliding across the cargo compartment when he pulled pitch and got us out of there. I believe it was Jim Miller and crew who then came in and pulled out the LRRP team.

  Never have I felt an H-Model shake as much as the ride back to the 155th at Ban Me Thuot. JD must have been pushing VNE all the way. He delivered us to the aid station at the 155th AHC. My wounds were cleaned, sown up and dressed. I had a hole in my right forearm but they were unable to find the projectile that made it. I also had what they determined to be a flesh wound to my right ear that they stitched closed.

  The weather began to close in on the Duc My pass, so I was given a bunk in the 155th AHC underground camp and told I would have to wait on a Medivac flight to Nha Trang the next morning. After viewing the accommodations for a few moments I headed for the O-Club for some self-prescribed medication. The stress medication really kicked in fast on top of the pain medication I had been given earlier and I was finally starting to feel relaxed. What a day this had been.

   My only concern was a small cut and blood spot under my right eye. It felt like a very small piece of shrapnel was under the skin and I could feel it move when I pressed it. I walked back over to the aid station and explained my concern that this object might move and cut up my eye and asked if they had an x-ray capability. They did and a frontal x-ray was taken.  The flesh wound, to my right ear, turned out to be an entry wound. Lodged about an inch in from the bottom of my right ear was the steel core of an AK-47 round. The bullet started tumbling after penetrating the windscreen and hit my helmet going sideways, thus robbing it of the energy needed to reach my other ear. Seeing the x-ray completely nullified the stress medication I had consumed earlier so I returned to the O-Club and got clobbered.

   John Miles ran into one of his flight school classmates (Menzell) with the 155th that evening and was told that one of their crew members was wounded while two of their aircraft had received fire from that same rubber plantation the previous week. So much for up to date intel.

   The next day I was flown to the Field Hospital in Na Trang. I remember walking in with a hangover, my head bandaged up and asking the duty nurse “ Who do I need to see about getting a bullet removed from my head”?  The Surgeon did a great job minimizing the scars by making his incisions down natural creases along my ear and neck. The next few days in the recovery ward with light skinned, round-eyed, mini skirt wearing nurses was quite the change.

   The doctor was a great guy and advised me if I had been unconscious for any amount of time, I would be grounded for a year and sent stateside. This of course meant I was only dazed by the wound and remained conscious at all times. He also said he would send me to Japan for a recovery period if I wished but then they might send me back stateside. This was not an option, as I remember less than ten months would not count as a tour and I had only been in country for five months. I chose the third option, which was return to the 92nd for a short convalescence. According to my flight records, I returned to flight status on the 13th of June. I had to fly as Peter Pilot with my mentor and old friend Robert (Grif) Griffith for a few days; presumably, to make sure I would not freak.

    John Paull’s aircraft, flying the wing position of the Sidekick fire team, also received a hit from ground fire narrowly missing his tail rotor 90-degree gearbox but knocking out his FM radio.

    Unfortunately as young soldiers we didn’t always recognize the selflessness in those young indestructibles around us, until time and maturity allowed us to ponder the many what-ifs that could have silenced their actions. How lucky was I to have served with these brothers and heroes whose gallantry has grown with the blessings of children and grandchildren and the knowledge that they put their ass on the line for mine.

Thanks guys,

Bull

Rescue Aircraft

AC WO1 John D. Lynn

P CW2 Philip Nystrom

CE  ???

G   ???

Sidekick Lead

AC CW2 Mike “Daddy” Radwick

P    WO1 Horace “Gator” Green

CE  E5 Don Mears

G     ???

Sidekick Wingman

AC O3 John “Captain Jack” Paull

P    ???

CE  ???

G    ???

 

  Les Davison with the 155th AHC had taken a photo of the aircraft and wrote the tail number on the back.  Recently, while going through some of his old photos from VietNam he ran across the one of 466; which, reminded him of the incident. He then sent the photo to a friend, Don Pond who he knew had been with the 92nd. Don and I happened to have roomed together in VN so he forwarded it to me, confirming finally the tail number 466 after forty years.