Hamfist At DaNang: The FAC Diaries (The Air Combat Adventures of Hamilton Hamfist Hancock Book 3) Read online

  Hamfist At DaNang

  The FAC Diaries

  by

  G. E. Nolly

  www.GENolly.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with.

  Cover art by Tony Stencel, http://tonystencel.squarespace.com/

  Copyright © 2013 G. E. Nolly. All rights reserved. Including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof, in any form. No part of this text may be reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the author.

  Version 2015.10.20

  Glossary of Terms at the end of the book.

  This book is dedicated to American military veterans, past, present, and future.

  Other books by G. E. Nolly:

  Hamfist Over The Trail

  Hamfist Down!

  Hamfist Over Hanoi

  Hamfist Out

  Hamfist Trilogy

  Frag Order

  PROLOGUE

  December 21, 1969

  I was scheduled for my Champagne Flight – my final mission – in the morning. Things had been uncharacteristically quiet on the trail for several days, and I wanted to get some target photos for Intel to find out what was going on. Also, I wanted some photos of the AO as a memento of my Vietnam tour.

  The O-2 actually had the provision for a belly-mounted KB-18 aerial camera, but we didn't have any KB-18s at DaNang. So, if we wanted to take photos, we relied on hand-held cameras. There were a bunch of beat up old Nikon Fs at the squadron, but they were really heavy and difficult to use with one hand. It was really tough to fly and take pictures at the same time.

  Then, about two weeks earlier, we got new cameras, Pentax Spotmatics with motor drives. Each camera had a pistol-grip mount with a trigger to activate the shutter, and the focus was set at “infinity”, so there would be no problem with single-hand operation. I was really looking forward to giving them a try. I signed one out on a hand receipt and carried it to the plane.

  Task Force Alpha had provided Igloo White information from the seismic sensors that indicated a lot of truck activity along highway 165, near Chavane. I headed directly to the Chavane area to see if I could find anything.

  Chavane was an old abandoned grass airfield. Reflectors still lined the edges of the runway, and it almost looked like it could support aircraft operations at any moment. I'd heard that it was an old Japanese airfield from World War II.

  There was a dead truck parked out in the open, off to the south side of the east end of the runway. About a year ago, it had been used as a flak trap for unsuspecting FACs, but the word had been out for a long time and nobody paid any attention to it any more. There were no longer active guns, that we knew of, in the area.

  I followed highway 165 away from the airfield, and kept my camera on the seat next to me, ready to use if I found anything of interest. I put the highway on the left side of the airplane, and made gentle turns right and left. It was during the left turns that I would be able to see gomer activity, if there was any. The gomers thought we always looked ahead of the airplane, and they would frequently conduct their movements after we passed, thinking we couldn't see them once they were behind the wing.

  Sure enough, back at my seven o'clock, I saw a truck cross the road, from the cover of the jungle on one side of the road to the cover of the jungle on the other side. I kept my eyes on the exact location and began a steeper turn back toward that area.

  I picked out a distinctive landmark, a small bend in the road, and then looked further away to see if there were any other landmarks that could point my eyes back to the target. I used the runway at Chavane for a yardstick. The target was exactly one runway length north of the east end of the runway. The bend in the road sort of pointed to the target. Okay, now I could leave the immediate target area and find my way back.

  I flew off to the east and set up an orbit over an area a few klicks away, to make the gomers think I was interested in something else. I turned on the gyro-stabilized binoculars, locked onto the target area, and zoomed in to the highest setting.

  Sure enough, I saw some vehicle tracks in the dirt alongside the road that indicated truck activity. I was pretty sure there was a truck park there, I just couldn't determine which side of the road it was on. I flew back to the target area and made a wide sweeping circle, taking pictures from every angle. If I couldn't get any air assets, I would at least have photos to give to Intel.

  I switched my transmitter over to VHF and called Hillsboro.

  “Hillsboro, Covey 218, vicinity Delta 33. I have a truck park and need air.”

  “Roger, Covey 218, we're sending Sharkbait 41 to you, flight of two fox fours, CBU-24s and mark-82s. ETA 10 minutes. Strike frequency Echo.”

  “Roger, thank you.”

  I looked forward to working with Sharkbait Flight. Sharkbait was the callsign of the F-4s from Cam Ranh Air Base. When I was at the Cam Ranh hospital, I went by the F-4 squadron a few times, just to visit with the jocks. I got to know a few of them, and they showed me around one of the airplanes in the maintenance hangar. Sitting in the cockpit convinced me that I really ought to request an F-4 for my follow-on assignment. That really worked out well!

  I switched my UHF to strike frequency Echo and waited. After a few minutes, the F-4s arrived at the rendezvous.

  “Sharkbait, check.”

  “Two.”

  “Hello, Covey 218, Sharkbait 41, flight of two fox fours at the rendezvous point. Mark-82s and CBU-24s. Angels twenty-two. Twenty minutes playtime.”

  “Roger Sharkbait. Look due south, at angels seven. I'm giving you a wing flash now.”

  I rocked my wings several times and performed a quick aileron roll. The O-2 wasn't really an acrobatic aircraft, but an aileron roll wasn't all that much different than the maneuver we needed to perform a rocket pass. And I wanted to get my rocks off one last time.

  “We have you in sight, Covey.”

  “Roger, the target area is off my left wing. Truck park. Negative reaction so far. I'm in for the mark.”

  I rolled into a 120-degree bank to the left and pulled the nose of my aircraft through into a 30-degree dive. When the pipper in my gun sight tracked up to the target, I fired off a willie pete. I pulled off hard to the right, then banked left to see where my mark hit. It was a perfect mark, right on the road adjacent to my target.

  “Sharkbait has your mark in sight.”

  “Okay, Sharkbait, the target is a truck park on both sides of the road, alongside my mark. I want you to run in with mark-82s from north to south, with a break to the west. Lead, put your bombs in the trees next to my mark. Either side of the road. Two, I want you to take the other side of the road. I'll be holding off to the east.”

  “Sharkbait lead is in.”

  Sharkbait lead put his bombs exactly where I wanted, and we immediately got huge secondary explosions. As lead pulled off target, there was heavy fire at his aircraft from a ZSU 23-4, located about a klick to the west of the target.

  I transmitted, “Number two, hold high and dry. I want to put you in on that gun. Do you have the location, or do you want
me to mark?”

  Before number two could answer, lead came back on the radio.

  “Sharkbait lead's been hit.”

  I immediately got on the radio again, “Lead, head south, I repeat, head south. Number two, hold high and dry.”

  Sharkbait two acknowledged.

  “Roger.”

  Sharkbait lead had apparently heard me, he was heading south. I could see flames trailing from lead's aircraft, and they were moving forward, gradually engulfing the entire aircraft.

  I was fairly sure lead knew he was on fire, but I didn't want to take any chances. “Sharkbait lead, you're on fire!”

  Now burning pieces were separating from lead's aircraft.

  Lead came on the radio one last time.

  “Sharkbait lead bailing out.”

  Part One

  Hamfist Over The Trail

  Chapter 1

  October 16, 1968

  As soon as the ENG FIRE light caught my attention, my left hand was moving – almost without my intentional thought – to perform the BOLD FACE actions for an engine fire:

  Throttle – Idle

  Throttle – Off

  If Fire Light Remains On – If fire is confirmed – Eject

  In all of our daily pre-flight briefings, the chief instructor pilot had randomly called on one of us, the students, and we were required to immediately respond, verbatim, with the Bold Face responses to whatever emergency of the day he called out. It got to the point that the responses became automatic, pretty much unconscious. It now looked like all of that preparation had paid off.

  Time seemed to stand still as I waited to see if the fire light would go out. It was probably only a few seconds, but it seemed like longer, much longer. The light went out.

  While I was performing the Bold Face memory items of the Emergency checklist, I was totally functioning on mental autopilot. I felt like I was out of my body, watching this young Lieutenant student pilot go through his actions from above.

  But now that the engine fire was out, I was starting to have a visceral reaction. This was my first real emergency, and no matter how many times I had visualized and practiced an Engine Fire procedure, I hadn't expected it to play out the way it did. I certainly hadn't expected everything to seem like it was happening in slow motion.

  Now my mouth was dry, my heart was racing, I could feel my pulse pounding in my temple, and I was having a hard time flying smoothly. And, surprisingly, I had a raging hard-on.

  Being solo sure didn't help.

  I was alone in my T-38, leading a 4-ship flight, with my Instructor Pilot – IP – in the number 2 bird. As soon as the ENG FIRE light illuminated, the IP was screaming on the radio.

  “Knock it off, knock it off. Lead, your left engine is on fire!”

  I acknowledged by repeating the Air Force command for all maneuvering to cease.

  “Dingo Flight, knock it off, knock it off.”

  I gradually slowed from 300 knots to 250 and rocked my wings, signaling for the formation to rejoin to close “fingertip” formation, with three feet wingtip separation. It was clear to me that my maneuvering was done for the day, but there was no need to ruin it for my wingmen.

  “Three and four, you're cleared off into the practice area. I will RTB with number two”. The IP in the number three aircraft peeled off with number four, and I watched with a twinge of envy as I envisioned the combat training they would be doing in a few minutes. For me, the fight was over, and it was time to Return to Base – RTB.

  We'd been scheduled for an Air Combat Maneuvering practice ride, and I had really been looking forward to finally getting to see ACM first-hand. All of the student pilots in our formation would be progressing on to fighter aircraft after graduation from Undergraduate Pilot Training in a few days, and this would be our introduction to the type of flying we would be doing in the near future. We hadn't received our final aircraft assignments yet, but the four of us in this formation flight were at the top of our class, and we'd all indicated our desire to go to fighters, so it was a foregone conclusion we'd be getting F-100, F-105 or maybe even F-4 assignments to Vietnam any day now. In fact, the assignments should have come in by now.

  This was my last scheduled solo flight, and I had been looking forward to returning to base with a nice, tight 350-knot 4-ship flight down initial approach, with a crisp pitch-out and textbook 4-ship in-trail landing. Instead, I would be doing a long, straight-in approach, with the fire department waiting for me to make my emergency landing. Disappointing.

  I was starting to calm down again as I headed back to Laughlin Air Force Base. I switched our 2-ship flight over to Approach Control frequency and mentally reviewed the single-engine landing procedure. I started configuring the flight for landing a bit earlier than usual, just to make sure no aircraft systems had been affected by the fire. It was the first time I had ever performed a post-emergency Controllability Check. The absence of any verbal advice from my IP indicated to me that I was probably doing everything correctly.

  The scrub brush of the south Texas landscape zipped by at a faster rate than usual on final, since I was flying a higher approach speed due to the inoperative engine and the higher speed due to the lower flap setting. Otherwise, everything seemed pretty much like a normal approach.

  A single-engine approach in the T-38 was not that big a deal, really. The only challenge would be the last part, between 500 feet and 100 feet. If the remaining engine were to fail then, I would really be screwed. Too low to bail out or stretch a glide to the runway. They call it a “zero-zero” ejection seat, but what works at zero altitude and zero airspeed won't necessarily work when you're descending at over 800 feet per minute. I unconsciously held my breath.

  Luck, I preferred to think it was karma, was with me, and it was an uneventful landing. My IP had been flying fingertip formation on me all the way down final, and executed a missed approach as I rolled out. The fire truck followed me as I taxied to my parking spot, and the crew chief gave me a “thumbs up” after carefully inspecting my bird.

  As I finished filling out the aircraft logbook, Airman Folsom, the squadron Admin Clerk, came running up to me. “Lieutenant Hancock, Colonel Ryan wants to see you ASAP.”

  I knew that Colonel Ryan, the Deputy Commander for Operations – the DO – was informed any time there was an emergency, but I didn't think that he met with every pilot immediately after landing. I guessed he must have really been impressed with my performance, and wanted to personally congratulate me.

  I put on my “Joe Cool all-in-a-day's-work” face and went to Wing Headquarters to receive my accolades.

  Boy, was I in for a shock.

  Chapter 2

  October 16, 1968

  Emily, the DO's secretary, ran up and gave me a long, passionate hug as soon as I walked in to the outer office. I immediately looked around to see if anyone else was in view. We were alone. PDA – Public Display of Affection – was seriously frowned upon, and I didn't want to get myself, or Emily, in hot water.

  She looked like she might have been crying. “Hamilton! I was so worried!”

  Emily and I had been seeing each other, dating, pretty much every day since we'd met at a barbecue at Colonel Ryan's house two months earlier. Colonel Ryan had invited the three top students in our class to his house, and Emily and I had hit it off immediately. She had just been hired as a secretary, right out of college, shortly before we met, and I think I was the first pilot, all right, student pilot, she had ever dated.

  “There was nothing to worry about, Emily. It was routine. I'm fine.” I paused. “Colonel Ryan sent for me.” Other than using her first name, I tried to keep it strictly professional, just in case Colonel Ryan could hear us in his office.

  Emily knocked on Colonel Ryan's door, and walked into his office. I followed her with my eyes. Damn, she was good-looking! She was petite, about five-two, and had a great figure. Her blonde, shoulder-length hair framed a model's face, and she had a great, bubbly personality. I was really l
ooking forward to seeing her later.

  I could hear Emily through the partly open door, “Lieutenant Hamilton Hancock is here to see you, Colonel.” I heard a muffled response, and then Emily reappeared.

  “The Colonel will see you now.”

  “Thanks, Emily.”

  Colonel Ryan rose as I entered the room, and I walked over to his desk, stood at attention, and gave my best Academy salute. “Lieutenant Hancock reporting as ordered, sir!”

  Colonel Ryan returned the salute and sat down. “At ease, Lieutenant. Have a seat.”

  I sat in the stiff wooden chair opposite his desk. It was a chair probably meant to intimidate, rather than provide comfort. I briefly thought of all the poor brown-bars who'd received serious ass-chewing sessions in that chair, and wondered if maybe I'd screwed up somewhere along the way and it was my turn.

  “Relax, Ham. You're not in any trouble, but I have some disappointing news for you.” He'd never called me Ham before. In fact, He'd only called me by my first name, Hamilton, once before, when he introduced me to Emily, at his house. Had he learned my nickname from Emily?

  “I know you had your heart set on getting a fighter,” he continued, “but I'm afraid that's not going to happen. There are no fighter slots in the assignment roster for your class. I made some phone calls to MPC, but there was nothing I could do for you. Needs of the service.”

  I wondered briefly if he really had called his contacts at the Military Personnel Center. Yeah, he had – he was a stand-up guy, and if he said he did something, he did it.

  “But sir,” I stammered, “You remember, at the barbecue at your house, you told me I could get any airplane I wanted. You said they did that for every DG.” If I couldn't get the assignment I wanted, why had I worked so damned hard to be Distinguished Graduate – the top student in my class of 48.