Bingo to Da Nang - Episode 6

[Michael Foley]

"These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend
no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can
reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself
scourged by the sequent effects: love cools,
friendship falls off, brothers divide: in
cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in
palaces, treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son
and father."
- William Shakespeare (King Lear)

This passage reminds me of a night flight with an eclipsing moon that….”portends no good to us:” Late in the afternoon of August 27, 1966, on board the Constellation, Lieutenant Commander Bill Gordon and I were briefing for a night road reconnaissance flight. Our plan was to go along Route One, the coastal highway that runs from Hanoi down the eastern coast of North Vietnam all the way to the demilitarized zone (DMZ). We were going to look for a night time convoy of trucks carrying supplies to the Viet Cong gorillas.

Night reconnaissance flights were needed to cut down on the supplies of food, guns and ammunitions into South Vietnam. The supplies were sent south during the night to avoid air attacks during the daylight hours. Our planes carried magnesium parachute flares to light up the night skies. If we thought we spotted a convoy, we would fly over the highway at 5000 feet and drop a flare which would light up everything under it. The flare would slowly drift down giving us a chance to climb up to 10,000 feet, do some thirty degree dive bombing on the trucks, and pull out above the flare. A pilot would not want to fly under the flare because it would illuminate his aircraft for the enemy. In our briefing we went over all of the things that are done differently for night operations. Hand signals, light signals, emergency frequencies, and Bingo fields among other things.

Bingo fields were air bases we could go to if we couldn’t get back on the ship for any reason. Any time you left the ship, you had a preplanned Bingo field where you would go in an emergency. Pilots would calculate how much fuel was needed to get to the Bingo field, and then hold that amount of fuel in reserve. For those operations at Yankee Station, the Bingo fields were in South Viet Nam, mostly the big Air Force Base in Da Nang. Bill and I talked about the divert procedures, the TACAN frequencies of our navigation equipment. Night briefings always lasted longer than briefings for daytime operations.

Flash back with me to 1965, Jacksonville, Florida, at Cecil Field, one of the Navy training bases for the A-4 Skyhawk. I was learning how to do in-flight refueling at night. A flight of four students, me included, was going out over the Atlantic Ocean to join up with an A-3 Skywarrior, equipped to do in-flight refueling. The A-3 had contacted Air Traffic Control and was given coordinates to an area for refueling practice. The A-3 pilot would fly in a race track pattern about 25 miles long. At the end of the pattern he would gently roll into a 30 degree bank turn to head back 25 miles in the opposite direction, all the time giving fuel to the four students. The students would fly a loose formation on the tanker, and, one at a time, fly over to the basket and plug the refueling probe into the basket, get some fuel, and then back out and move to the opposite side of the tanker. When all the students were done they would be on the opposite side and start the procedure again, until each pilot had five plug-ins.

I think I was on my third try when I plugged in. The A-3 was at the end of the race track pattern and turned into a thirty degree bank very gently. When I pulled out from the basket I moved to the opposite side of the formation. But when I pulled out, I thought I was in level flight, but I was not. I had vertigo. Spatial disorientation. The first time in my life. I had heard about vertigo, but I did not believe I could get. When I rolled over to go left to get back in position, I was already in a 30 degree turn, so turned more and ended in a 60 degree turn. My nose lowered because of the steepness of my turn, and soon I was watching my altimeter unwind, heading down. Now I had no idea what was going on. I realized how bad things were getting. The others were calling me and asking if I was all right.

I had learned that if you get vertigo you must immediately look at the artificial horizon instrument, your primary flight instrument. It will tell you what degree you are banking, and what your nose attitude is doing. I glued my eyes on the instrument and tried not to believe what my senses were telling me. I turned the wings back to level and pulled the nose up. It was a black night over the ocean and there was no horizon to be seen, except the artificial horizon instrument. I pulled the nose up and leveled the airplane at 6000 feet over the ocean. I had been refueling at 17,000 feet. I lost 11,000 feet during my vertigo. If I started refueling at 10,000 feet, well, no sense thinking of that.

Now back in the ready room, Bill and I talked about vertigo. Once you experience it, and realize you must lock on to your instruments, you can deal with vertigo much better. The problem at night is that you lose your depth perception, especially when it is really dark over the ocean. Having even a little moonlight can improve the perception problem immeasurably, and a bright moon is almost like daylight. In the Navy as a pilot you must get so many hours of night time flying in per year. When there is a bright moon, all of the senior pilots, like the skipper, try to get their night flying in, so a full moon in the Navy is called, a Commander’s Moon, the junior officers get to fly when it is dark.

Lieutenant Commander Bill Gordon and I launched in the darkness. We rendezvoused on the 270 degree radial at 20 miles from the ship at 18,000 feet. He was the senior officer, so I was the wingman. Once I was in position next to him, my nose about twenty feet from his right wing, as agreed, we turned off our anti-collision lights, and our wing lights, to make ourselves invisible in the darkness. We headed out on a course taking us due west and we expected to cross the beach seventy-six miles from the carrier. Bill turned on his radar and easily saw the coastline, right where we expected it to be. Good start. We descended down to 5000 feet. We flew at 250 knots to conserve fuel.
It wasn’t long before we thought we saw what looked like a line of flashlights on the ground. We circled around and we dropped one flare at the beginning of the flashlights and one at the other end. Both flares illuminated normally and produced almost daylight conditions. In the bright light we saw about a dozen trucks. As soon as the flares went off, the trucks left the road and tried to hide under trees, but there was not much tree cover. We climbed to 10,000 feet and Bill rolled in, dropped two GBUs. A GBU looks like a regular bomb, but it is a cluster bomb. When it hits the ground it releases something like 100 hand grenades that scatter all over. Bill hit at least one truck because it caught on fire. But I noticed that he was being shot at by a new AAA gun.

The ZPU was a new weapon from the Soviet Union. It was like a Gatling gun that fires at a high rate of rounds per minute. This new weapon was better than a Gatling gun. The ZPU had four barrels and fired 14.5 mm rounds of ammunition at an astounding rate of 2400 rounds per minute. If it hit your wing, it would literally saw your wing off! When I saw that, I decided to drop my bombs from a higher altitude. I called Bill and told him about the ZPU, and I told him I saw one truck on fire. I rolled in, dropped high and pulled away quickly. Bill said we would each make one more run and then get out of there.

Bill was excited about lighting up so many trucks. He wanted to get more than one truck. He called, “Rolling in!” and I watched him drop again right on target, there were more explosions among the trucks. But as he pulled out, even though he was above the flares, the reflected light illuminated his plane. The ZPU opened up along with a 37mm AAA gun. I called to tell him and got no answer. I saw where he was, because of the flares, and I flew over to join him. I was flying on his wing and we headed out to the ocean. One thing I knew was he had lost his radios because he was not talking.

Once out over the ocean, I slowly inspected his plane and saw a hole in the electronics bay compartment. I suspected he had complete electrical failure. I turned on all of my outside lights, but he did not turn on his. I looked in his cockpit and he was using his flashlight to look at his instruments. He shined it at me. He used the flashlight to tap on his helmet and then pointed to me to signal a leader change, he wanted me to take the lead, which I did and he joined on my wing.

I turned on my TACAN and dialed the frequency of the ship. By now we were about 50 miles from the ship. The ship’s call sign was Warchief. I called Warchief and told them about Bill’s situation. After a few minutes they called me back and said to Bingo to Da Nang. It would be too dangerous to bring him aboard the ship at night. Great, I had never been to South Vietnam and I was anxious to go. I headed south and turned on the TACAN for Da Nang Air Base.

We practice a broken radio, or no radio, situation all the time. Sometimes we have to not use our radios at all because the fleet is having a drill that does not permit radio communications. But the no radio drill, called “norad”, is no problem. My problem with my wingman was that I did not know if he was injured or the extent of damage to his airplane. He was flying in a very professional manner, good airmanship, so I assumed he must not be seriously injured. I signaled him to get his fuel state. He had as much fuel as I had, so he was not losing fuel. That was a very good thing.

I contacted the air traffic controllers for the Da Nang area. They identified my IFF signal (Identification Friend or Foe) and gave me an assigned heading and altitude to set me up for an approach to Da Nang. We descended as directed to 5000 feet when we were about 25 miles from the field. I was amazed to see so many lights on in South Vietnam. In the North there were absolutely no lights on at night. It was always dark. Here you see lights on in little villages and, of course, the big city of Da Nang and the Air Base were all lit up. The controller turned us over to the Approach Controller for landing. We checked in with him and started to slow down to 150 knots. The controller then told us to speed up and climb to 10,000 feet. He said that the Air Base was under a mortar attack by the Viet Cong, and was closed for take-off and landings. He then gave us a vector to Chu Lai.

I could not believe what was happening. I had lots of time to study my charts for the approaches to Da Nang, but not Chu Lai. I knew that Chu Lai was a Marine Corps airfield, but I had not had time to study the approaches, I did not even know what direction the runways were aligned. I was told that Chu Lai was only 30 miles away, less than 10 minutes. I told the controller what my problem was, and he told me the runway alignment and the needed frequencies. He said this happens quite often. He turned me over to the Chu Lai controllers. I told him I had a wingman who had been hit and he did not have a radio.

The Marine Corp pilots learn to fly in the same program with Navy pilots. The Marine pilots learn to land on aircraft carriers, so they also use the Optical Landing System that Navy pilots use to land on an aircraft carrier. Every Navy and Marine airfield is equipped with the Optical Landing System. The Marine controller gave us instruction and guidance to line up on runway 14. We descended to 1500 feet to intercept the glide slope of the Optical Landing System. I gave Bill the signal to put his flaps down and landing gear (wheels) down. Once we were lined up and I saw the orange light centered on the green datum lights, I flashed my wing lights twice which was the signal for him to take over visually. I stayed flying straight ahead and Bill descended on the glide slope and landed safely.

Once he was on the ground the controller vectored me around for my approach. I intercepted the glide slope and landed. What I did not know, because of the darkness, was that the runway was not a concrete runway. It was Marston matting. Marston matting is corrugated steel with holes in it for drainage; it was used in World War Two. It is very rough. I thought I had landed in a field, but the runway lights were on either side of me so I knew this was the runway. When I got stopped and I looked around, I saw a nice 8000 foot concrete runway right next to the Marston matting runway. It was the Marine’s idea of a good joke for their Navy brethren. I saw Bill at the end of the runway so I taxied up to him. I had to ask for directions as to where they wanted us to park. They gave us directions away from the tower and hanger area to a remote section of the airfield. I asked what was going on. The ground controller told us that the Navy people on the base would come out to help us.
We sat in our planes for about twenty minutes when finally two jeeps appeared. A man in camouflage fatigues got out of the jeep and just stood there. I shut my engine down, unstrapped, climbed out on the wing and jumped to the ground. Bill did the same. I introduced myself and told the man about my wingman’s problem. He introduced himself as Chief Andrews. He said he was the highest ranking Navy man on this base. He told us that the Lieutenant, who was in charge of the Navy detachment, had gone to DaNang. I asked what kind of Navy detachment was on this Marine base. The Chief told me it was a SeaBee detachment. SeaBees! SeaBees! That is the Navy Construction Battalion, the people who build runways and buildings. They don’t have anything to do with Aviation!

This must be another Marine joke. The SeaBees can’t help us. By now it was after ten o’clock at night. Chief Andrews asked if we were hungry. We had not been thinking about eating, but when the Chief suggested that he would take us over to the SeaBees Club where we could get dinner and drinks, well, how can you turn down that kind of hospitality! We left our airplanes as they were, piled into the jeeps and off we went to the Club.

The thing about the SeaBees is that they built the base at Chu Lai. They unload all of the construction materials off of the ships in the harbor; they built the runways, the chow halls, the living quarters, put in the plumbing, air conditioning, and refrigeration. They also off load from the ships the food to supply the chow halls. It should not have been a surprise to me, then, to see that they had built for themselves this really nice club. It was located right on a sandy beach overlooking palm trees and the ocean. It had a big deck in the back of the club to sit out and relax.

As a military organization, the SeaBees are more like the Keystone Cops. Everything is informal. Rank means nothing to them. They all just do their jobs and every thing runs smoothly. When we went into the club with all of our flight gear on, everyone there was interested in knowing why we were there. The Chief explained to all that we were up in North Vietnam, flying off of the aircraft carrier Constellation, and that Lieutenant Commander Gordon had been hit by enemy fire, and we had landed at Chu Lai. Well, everyone cheered. We were real warriors to them, and they would not let us buy a drink at the bar. They were asking us questions and buying us drinks. What was nice for us to see was there were women there. Vietnamese woman in high heels and cocktail dresses! And they liked us, too! This was great, what fun, much better than being on the ship. All’s well that ends well.

Getting really involved with our new friends, we forgot about eating. But we did not forget about the free drinks. In the bar area they had a stage with a piano on it. Some one was playing the piano and one of the SeaBees, who happened to be from Ireland, was singing. It was really nice and he was singing Oh Danny Boy which is a sad Irish ballad. We were having a wonderful time. At about 1:00 AM, a young Seabee, who apparently was still on duty, came over to us and asked us which of us was Lieutenant Commander Gordon. Bill said that he was. The young sailor told him there was a phone call for him from the aircraft carrier. Bill rushed off to answer the call. When he came back his face was ashen. I could tell he had some bad news.
The Air Wing Commander had decided they needed the planes back tonight! He said, get back in the planes and come out to the ship. I said to Bill, “You told him we were drunk, right?” “No, I didn’t. We’ve got to go.” I could not believe my ears. Here we were having such a wonderful time, and we were, in fact, inebriated. No denying that.

Bill told the Chief that we had to go back to the planes because we were leaving.. The Chief was incredulous. He was sure this was a joke, but it was not. We gathered up our flight gear and were taken out to the planes. Before leaving, we called the Marine Aviation Group and told them we were going back to the carrier, and that we needed an air start cart, an engine starting unit, to get the engines going. They said they would send one out to the tarmac. We didn’t have a ladder to get into the cockpit, we didn’t have a Plane Captain to assist us, and we simply climbed up on the wing and walked along the refueling probe and climbed into the cockpit. The air start cart arrived. We started our planes, I called the ground controller for taxi instructions. This time they directed us to the concrete runway. With Bill on my wing, we took off together into the blackness, not knowing where the ship was. The one thing about being inebriated was that it made us brave and gave us courage.

I had a general idea where the ship might be, but we had to find it fast because we did not get any fuel in Chu Lai. We had to land quickly or get some in-flight refueling. When we were about 75 miles from where I thought it would be, I called the ship. “Warchief, Warchief, this is Silver Fox five oh five.” No answer. We flew another twenty-five miles and I tried again, “Warchief, Warchief, this is Silver Fox five oh five.” Again, no answer. If we didn’t land soon we would be making a water landing. I tried to be a little more forceful, letting them know of our urgency. “Goddamit, Warchief this is Silver Fox five oh five and we need to land right away.” “Roger Silver Fox, this is Warchief, you are nineteen miles from the ship, turn left to head three four five Descend to fifteen hundred feet. You have a ready deck for landing.”

We were vectored behind the ship and lined up for an approach. Once I saw the orange ball of the Optical Landing System, lined up with the green datum lights, I flashed my wing lights twice and Bill looked ahead, saw the ball and followed the glide path down to landing. I flew along side him at 600 feet and saw him land. I stayed close by in case he did not catch a wire. I asked for a vector to come back and land. I made a 30 degree turn as instructed, but when I rolled out I realized I had vertigo. At 600 feet of altitude you can fly into the water very quickly. I glued my gaze onto the artificial horizon to right the airplane. But my head and ears were telling me I was not straight. I had learned my lesson last year. Believe the instruments. The only way I felt comfortable was to cock my head over to the left 30 degrees and then I felt like I was level.

I was given vectors around behind the ship and onto the glide path. When I saw the orange ball, I called the Landing Signal Officer and I recognized his voice. His name was Gary Starbird, but everyone called him Bird. I said, “Bird, this is the Sheriff and I’ve got vertigo, help me out!” So Bird gave me a little extra help talking me down. I had to keep my head cocked over to the left so it was a little harder to see the ball. But I listened to the Bird and BANG I hit the deck and caught a wire. It was only then that I realized that back in Chu Lai I had forgotten to strap in to the ejection seat and restraining straps. The airplane stopped but I did not. I was thrown as far into the glare shield as my head and arms could go. The airplane control stick was stuck in my gut and throttle was at full power. The Air Boss in the control tower was yelling at me to pull my throttle back, but my arms were stuck, along with my head, between the glare shield and the canopy. “Throttle back!!” the Air Boss was yelling again. Finally, I got my left arm free and moved the throttle back to idle.

As I climbed out of my airplane, I noticed that I had not pulled the safety flag out of the ejection seat. The ejection seat would not have fired. But even if it had, I wasn’t strapped into the ejection seat anyway. The seat may have fired, but I wouldn’t have had a parachute. There is a lesson to be learned here. Folks should not go flying in the middle of the night when they are inebriated.

Thankfully, there was no debriefing. I went to my room and passed out. What a night! The late……moon, portends no good to us. Amen.