25 July 1967

by

Brent Gourley
Huey Pilot
in the First Platoon aka The Rat Pack

_____________________________________

July 25th, 1967. For the month, I had the standby duty for the Korean general officer in charge of all Korean forces in Vietnam. The ROK forces had an installation just around the coastline north of Nha Trang and another behind the mountain that stood west of the city Quy Nhon.

I thought at the time that having this month-long duty was probably some kind of reward or honor for whatever I had done right. Probably, though, because I had proven my ineptitude at map reading. Nha Trang and Quin Nhon, both on the coast of the South China Sea, can't be missed. After this tour of duty, my proficiency improved when WO branch sent me to Ft Rucker to teach the very same; well, I also had a girl friend in the area. In 1968, the Army graduated about 200 pilots every two weeks at both Fort Rucker and Hunter AAF near Ft Stuart near Savannah, GA. If you could be a decent co-pilot, you graduated.

On a day when the Korean general was out of town; I received a mission to carry four or five U.S. and Vietnamese Special Forces VIPs to the Da Nang headquarters about a three hour flight away up the coast to Da Nang. The HQ located itself on the beach on the south side of the USMC airfield at Marble Mountain - so named for the temples made from the volcanic cores that stood just south of the airfield. A three hour flight meant refuel at Quin Nhon, then almost two hours to Marble Mountain.

At the request of the pax (passengers), we stopped in at the SF camp at Thein Phuc, almost to Marble Mountain and south-west of the city of Tam Ky (15.5 N Lat; 108.49 E Long).

I remember the helipad being in the camp's minefield with a boardwalk to camp; the camp itself was the usual triangle surrounded by barbed wire and high explosives. The brass went in to the camp building; we proceeded with shut-down procedures. The rotor blades were still coasting down when the passengers and SF guys came boiling out of the hut and back to the aircraft. They had a request that we go help the two SF team members and a patrol of CIDG (Civilian Irregular Defense Group - the local militia) ambushed by a force of the enemy not far away. It was the reputation of the 281st to never turn down a mission for the SF; so promising to do what we could, we made ready by removing the jump doors, donning what body armor we had, and checking the guns.

After lift-off from the camp, I dug out my pocket notebook and looked up a flight school friend stationed at Marble Mountain USMC airfield with the only Army unit there; the 282nd. Yes, I had the radio frequency for that unit; having met my friend on a previous trip. I called, and two gunships and a slick huey appeared shortly. The gunships would distract the bad guys while I approached the SF team. Radio contact with the team produced colored smoke for identification of a landing spot. The careful reader may note this operation was the first I had put together and the story teller here. Of course, that means when I had looked from the smoke to check our rpm or something; the smoke was gone when I looked back.*

So, I proceeded to the closest estimate of the SF location. I don't think I was too close; and, alarmingly, the little square of real estate in which I touched down had shiny new barbed wire just outside my door. Four or five unarmed CIDG and at least one in his underwear jumped in the open doors. Our door gunners were busy; as was the enemy. Bullets hitting the aircraft do sound like hammers; I felt one pass near my boot tops. A gunner yelled; "Let's get out of here." I applied full power and turned eastward toward the Vietnamese dirt strip on the west side of Tam Ky where the USAF forward observer parked his airplane at night.* Our instruments intended to indicate the conditions of the engine and transmission were not doing so; and had yellow lights in the caution and warning panel.

It's a short flight to safety. Upon landing, we discovered the uniformed CIDG fellow sitting on the floor directly behind me had received a fatal abdominal wound. The aircraft's crew chief and left side gunner, Mike Hargis, had a spot of broken skin on his right side of rib cage. Except for Mike and the aircraft, we were unscathed.

Inspection of the aircraft revealed eight bullet holes. One through the upper left corner of the plastic bubble in front of my feet; that projectile continued inside and "took out" the DC/AC inverters which power the instruments rather than hitting both of my shinbones. Another passed through the transmission island from right to left; thereby missing one gunner and giving a red spot to the crew chief on the left. Another bullet hit the fuselage on the left behind the gunner before it passed thru the electronic box for the HF radio. Another passed thru a landing skid from the other side of the aircraft. There's no telling how many passed thru passed thru the open doors and found nothing.

I don't remember how we arranged transport for the colonels we left at Thein Phouc or how we communicated our situation; but probably the 282nd aircraft assisted. Before not too long, we did get a huey ride to SF HQ on the beach at Da Nang. I had appointed the crew chief to protect the aircraft from vandalism at the VN airfield, completely forgetting his injury. In his later letters he said he did not want to abandon his aircraft.

We made our way back to Nha Trang on board other 281st aircraft that had been working in the north. Within two days, the CG of the LLDB presented us with the VN Cross of Gallantry. The U.S. awards took more than a year to catch up to me.

Why the awards, readers may ask? Apparently, we provided such a distraction that the U.S. members of the SF team made a quick getaway during the confusion.

Around the turn of the century, Mike Hargis, the crew chief on that adventure, contacted me asking for help. He had tried to obtain a Purple Heart for his injury. His request was denied because he spent that night with his aircraft instead of seeking medical help right away and nobody had a record. Even his congressman refused. So, I wrote a letter to Senator Inhoff as a witness to the injury and acknowledged guilt for Mike's failure to receive his award. Mike finally did receiv his medal.

War leaves no person unmarked; Mike had since started over with his high school sweetheart. She wrote to me, two or three years later; Mike had finally made his escape from his never-ending two years in Vietnam.

https://www.281st.com/281Remembrance/dat/h_dat.html#hargis

NOTES:

* Don't bother looking on google maps for these beach headquarters or airports; the coast of VN today is wall to wall tourist hotels on the beach near the big cities. But find the big airport at Da Nang on Google Maps, then from the south end of the runway , look east to the beach, you will find Runway 35 near the beach. That was USMC Marble Mountain. The SF HQ was off the embankment at the south end of the runway and toward the beach. The China Beach hospital and PX of TV fame were at the north end of the runway. With Gary Ohmdahl as PIC, we carried 80 cases of soft drink of the beer yard; approximately.* None of the subdivisions and hotels existed in 1967.

*The LLDB CIDG camp upon whose air strip I landed on can't be found on Google maps. The development of the area since 1967 boggles my mind. (LLDB - Luc Luong Dac Biet - VN Special Forces)

* The army at the time was well short of adequate crew coordination training; just in case modern readers sense some inadequacy here.

* HF radio - one of the few every unit had - you could call home with it if the conditions were good - I would over the years hear of people who did that. I did listen but not being yet a ham radio operator, had no idea where to listen. The radio set had three components, weighed a hundred pounds at least, and complications such that I was never convinced they worked. On my second tour, I had one in a bunker where I worked; it was so noisy nothing else could be heard.

* The crew: Jerome Beck, pilot ( in country one week; known as Fred in the 281st and flight school, for reasons never now to be remembered), Mike Hargis, crew chief and gunner; John Williams, gunner.

* Thein Phuc, hiway QL40B, sw of Tam Ky near the beach. 15.56 N Latitude, 108.49 East Longitude on google maps.
Military grid coordinates of the action's location from the VN award BT176160 (6 digits - +/- 1 km )

*Quang Ngai city between Tuy Hoa (USMC airbase) and Quy Nhon (USAF base) and just south of Tam Ky.
The stretch of coast from Nha Trang to Tuy Hoa is the most eastward extent of the coast.

* The A photo of the beer run in my photo collection does not realy show the eighty cases loaded in the back of the Huey. My memory provides a picture of the aircraft fully stuffed, but can't be put on paper. I saved my paper military records from destruction when the HQ DA made the movd to microfisch prompts the text of this page and offered the paper records to the individual. You would not believe the contents.