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 26’s on flight line in Thailand.
As a twin prop attack-bomber, the A-26 was used principally for night armed reconnaissance during the Vietnam War. The primary objective was to intercept and destroy enemy trucks transporting munitions and supplies from North Vietnam through Laos along the Ho Chi Minh Trail to South Vietnam. In addition, the aircraft was frequently used for the support of ground forces and for combat support roles in air rescue missions.
Although old and relatively slow, the revamped A-26 had the advantage of being able to stay on station much longer than jet aircraft and was considerably more accurate in its bombing and strafing, especially at night. The aircraft had eight .50-caliber machine guns in the nose, but to reduce exhaust fumes in the cockpit, normally only six were loaded. This still delivered enough impact to send a large transport truck cartwheeling. We also had eight weapon stations on the wings and a bomb bay that could carry a bomb-load of 2000 pounds.
On January 7, 1967, I wrote my parents a letter:
“We arrived yesterday at Nakhon Phanom (NKP), Thailand. Everything is neatly military, but still the overwhelming impression is hot, dusty-brown, and isolated. The area seems impoverished in both economy and vegetation. So far my pilot, Jim McCleskey, and I have been living in a big open barracks. Most of our missions will be at night, and it is hot, humid, and altogether too miserable to get much sleep during the day. But we hope to get better quarters in a week. We fly our first combat mission tonight. NKP is in northeastern Thailand near the Mekong River. The time here is exactly 12 hours opposite EST…”
The call sign for the A-26’s was “Nimrod,” a biblical reference to an ancient Mesopotamian king described as “a mighty hunter” (Genesis 10:9). The 606th was part of an Air Commando Wing stationed at NKP. The wing consisted of several squadrons with a wide variety of propeller-driven aircraft used for special missions.
For our mission, we generally carried only two crew members, a pilot and a navigator. The navigator was seated to the pilot’s right in the co-pilot seat. As the navigator, I performed many co-pilot, radio, and armament functions as well as navigation and map reading. For some special missions we carried a third crewmember. The A-26K did not have an ejection system like most modern combat aircraft, so we picked up parachutes as well as radios, personal pistols, and other equipment on reporting to operations before a mission. Unlike most regular Air Force units, the Air Commandos allowed crewmembers some deviation from the standard weapons issue, and I carried a light-weight .38-caliber Colt revolver and a Bowie knife. A few in the squadron carried sub-machine guns with folding stocks. Our assigned missions were generally dangerous, and aircraft frequently returned with battle damage. Many never returned.
On February 7, I wrote my parents this brief letter:
“I just spent a bad four hours. We just flew escort for a rescue mission that ended in disaster. One of our O1-E pilots was downed just inside North Vietnam. He and three helicopter crew-members were killed in the attempt to lift him out. One young paramedic miraculously survived. I thank God at least for that. I am tired of dallying around in this war. If we want to end the war, we’re going to have to make the North Vietnamese suffer the consequences of war. We’re not really doing that now.”
I did not write my parents the last words of the Jolly Green chopper pilot to his backup, who was following about 150 yards behind. The words are etched forever in my mind:
“Get down here quick, Chuck. Get down here quick.”
But the chopper then hit the side of a mountain and left nothing but a sheet of fire covering a hundred yards. Somehow, the young pararescue medic was thrown clear, and the second chopper, under a hail of small-arms fire and taking many hits, managed to pick him up. They were able to clear the area and get into a safer area of Laos before their battle damage finally forced them to land. A third Jolly Green picked them up the next morning.
On the evening of February 22, McCleskey and I reported for duty on what would be my 35th combat mission in the A-26. On two previous, harrowing missions we had received some battle damage. As usual, we were carrying flares on the outside weapon stations, anti-personnel bombs on the inner stations, and rockets on the four middle positions. In the bomb bay we carried two monstrous one-thousand-pound bombs.
This particular night we were to follow by about 30 minutes another A-26 that had been designated Nimrod 36. We were designated Nimrod 37. The crewmem-bers of Nimrod 36 were Captain Dwight Campbell, pilot, and Captain Bob Scholl, navigator, both good friends of ours. The Ho Chi Minh Trail on the eastern border of Laos was only about 35 minutes away at our normal cruising speed of 200 knots. We were forced to change aircraft because of an oil leak, and when we caught up with Nimrod 36, they were working with a C-130 flare ship with the call sign, Lamplighter. They had located a large convoy of enemy trucks several miles south of the Ban Karai Pass bordering North Vietnam and Laos. Nimrod 36 had set fire to six of them and was continuing to work the area along the road with its six.50-caliber machine guns. However, they were under fire from at least four anti-aircraft guns that we could spot.
It became our task to suppress the guns while Nimrod 36 continued to work over the trucks. We spotted a Russian made ZPU-4, identifiable by its red tracers, two 37mm flak guns, and a .50-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun near the trucks. We decided the ZPU-4 was far enough to the West that we could avoid its area of effective fire and still work the trucks. As Nimrod 36 went in for a strafing run on the trucks, we made a dive-bombing run on the nearest 37mm gun. We made an approximately 40 degree angle dive, firing rockets simultaneously from each wing. Both rockets seemed to be a direct hit, but within a few minutes the gun recovered and resumed firing at Nimrod 36. We made another steep dive at the gun, this time delivering a thousand-pound bomb from the bomb bay. As we pulled off target and up from the dive, the tremendous blast of our bomb shook us even though we were now several thousand feet away. No more was heard from that anti-aircraft gun.
We then went after the second 37mm gun, again firing rockets from the wing positions. Again, both seemed to be a direct hit, but as before, the gun resumed firing within a few minutes. By now we were disgusted with rockets but confident of the power of the thousand-pound bombs. Consequently, we made a steep dive on the gun and released our second and last thousand-pound bomb. We felt the now familiar jolt of the blast as we pulled off target. No more was heard from the gun.
The.50-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun near the trucks was positioned to make strafing runs on the trucks especially dangerous. Spotting the white tracers following Nimrod 36 as it made another strafing run on the trucks, we made a low angle strafing run on the gun using our six .50-caliber machine guns in the nose. We managed to get several good seconds of strafing on target. For several minutes the gun was not heard from, so we began to strafe the trucks along with Nimrod 36. By this time there were several more burning trucks along the road. I am not sure anyone ever got an exact count, but we had inflicted severe damage on the enemy truck convoy.
Several minutes later, however, the .50-caliber anti-aircraft gun was back in action and firing at us. This time we made a very low, shallow strafing run, firing perhaps 10 to 12 seconds continually at the gun, and pulled up from the target no more than 50 feet from the ground. As we climbed off target, I could see the telltale white tracers of a .50-caliber anti-aircraft gun going up just in front of and behind our right wing. Then there was a shattering clank and thud, and I knew we had been hit. I immediately called to McCleskey’s attention that the fuel gage for the right engine indicated we were rapidly losing fuel in the right main tank. The engine also began to smoke and behave erratically, so after a few more seconds of climbing away from the gun, we feathered the engine to prevent a fire. We climbed to 5000 feet on the one engine and headed toward a hill that had been designated as a safe place to jettison armament.
Nimrod 36 came up under us to inspect the battle damage. Besides the damaged and now feathered number two engine, they noted a fire in our wheel-well, probably a burning tire. They also suspected that some fuel might be leaking on to the fire. We tried one of two fire extinguishers for the wheel-well area that could be remotely operated from the cockpit. Then Nimrod 36 came up under us again and informed us that it did not work. We made a second try with no results, and that was the last of our fire extinguishing capability. Our hearts sank at the disappointing news. By this time we were over the uninhabited area designated as a safe armament drop zone and dumped our flares, anti-personnel bombs, and the remaining rockets. Nimrod 36 came under us again and reported that there was still a fire in the wheel-well, and leaking fuel was feeding the blaze.
McCleskey, whose previous flying experience was with jet fighter/trainer type aircraft, had one more trick up his sleeve to put the fire out. I think I had seen this before in a WW2 movie, but I never thought I would have to live through it. He put the twin engine aircraft, now with only one engine, into a very steep dive (nearly straight down) to try to blow the fire out. Putting a burning A-26 with only one engine into a steep 4000-foot dive is not for the feint-hearted and I was greatly relieved when we pulled out of the dive at an altimeter reading of 1200 feet, just 700 feet from the ground. But Nimrod 36 came up under us again and reported the discouraging news that the wheel-well fire was still blazing.
~ to be continued.
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