Engineer Memoirs
Delta region in such villages as Bat Lieu, the women did remarkably good jobs of
defending the populace from Viet Cong attacks. In all such programs we had one
idea in mind: protecting the village and hamlet chiefs from being assassinated.
Another program we instituted was to get the Vietnamese army to erect barbed wire
fences around key villages. Into the barbed wire they sowed mines and flares.
Here again we had to take calculated risks. Many villagers lost their limbs or lives
because they did not know where the mines were planted. But we did our best to
assure that villagers knew where the cleared paths were. It was another way of
l
trying to protect villages and hamlets from Viet Cong attacks.
Our main efforts, however, were devoted to experimenting in combat with the
helicopters which we had jerry-rigged with 2.75-inch rockets and .50 caliber
machine guns. The idea was simple: helicopters could swoop in suddenly, having
flown the nap of the earth, and by discriminating carefully between friend and foe,
deliver accurate firepower to drive the enemy off. The main difficulty was with
operating under the rules of engagement then in effect. U.S. pilots were not
allowed to engage in combat but only to support the Vietnamese. This meant that
our U.S. pilots were. simply chauffeurs who carried Vietnamese soldiers who did
the actual firing of the rockets and machine guns. Vietnamese soldiers were prone
to air sickness and we had to provide them with special incentives to get them to
fly in the helicopters.
The idea enjoyed initial success because it was novel. The Viet Cong were at first
frightened by the choppers and would break and run when they saw them
approaching. Later, they became bolder and tried to shoot down the choppers.
But this proved very difficult because the helicopters would appear so suddenly that
the Viet Cong were surprised. Moreover, they hit very few because they did not
know how to take a lead on the moving targets. As time went on, however, they
got better at hitting the choppers. But even then, it proved not very effective. A
chopper which had been shot down could be lifted out by a sling from another
helicopter, be repaired, and come back to fight another day. What was described
in the U.S. press as a "disaster" when six helicopters were shot down at Ap Bac
proved not to be disastrous at all. All six helicopters were lifted out, repaired, and
brought back to fight again. Besides, we had learned a lesson and changed our
standing operating procedures [SOP]. Before Ap Bac, the orders to pilots were to
go immediately to the rescue of a pilot who had been shot down. In this way five
choppers were shot down trying to rescue the pilots from the first one. After Ap
Bac, when a chopper was shot down, other choppers would be sent to the rear or
flanks of the attacking force. We learned how to avoid sending good money after
bad
-
-
82
Previous Page
