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(EDITOR'S NOTE: Charles Black, Enquirer military writer, is on his fifth reporting assignment in Vietnam, and en route to the war zone has visited various military hot spots in the world. This is another of his daily articles about combat missions on which he accompanied U.S. troops.)
CU CHI, Vietnam - Up here is where I found out just how long the hour-and-a-half a helicopter scout spends at one time doing his work can be.
Capt. Michael Vicelleo had confided to me that "any longer than an hour-and-a-half is too long for a man to really stay alert, the strain is too much" while scouting in a little LOH helicopter for the 3rd Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry, an outfit commanded by Lt. Col. John Phillips of Columbus.
Maj. James McManus, the commander of Bravo Troop, moved up to Cu Chi from Di An to be handy to a pair of possible hot spots, the river routes along the Oriental and Saigon and the lacework of canals which make a sampan route from Cambodian safety to the Saigon area for North Vietnam and Viet Cong forces, was one.
The other concern was the Tay Ninh area to the northwest. That area flamed into often erroneous battle headlines as predicted. The Oriental and Saigon rivers were sneaky, snakelike problems.
They can be clear of enemy one day, then working alive with men and weapons the next. Men have died and suffered wounds because of this situation since at least 1964. The big Tet and May offensives were possible because of it. The war, in most military men's opinion, itself has dragged on because of the situation.
Cambodia's borders apply to only U.S. and South Vietnamese forces, heavily influenced by U.S. political rules applied to military problems. The enemy has built big supply bases there, filled through Cambodian ports and airstrips, by trucks hauling on Cambodian highways, with hospital, rest and training facilities set up for his troops. The enemy Central Office of South Vietnam, his command headquarters, is there.
These bases, routes and headquarters installations are safer than our own in South Vietnam. Diplomats are efficient guards for the enemy bases, the State Department has time and again hurried to the breastworks to stop military measures from being taken to wipe them out.
They are important in this story about two brave men in a scout ship.
Capt. Joseph L. Tuck, a big, handsome, Army aviator who had to squeeze into the little scout chopper, and PFC Richard Edwards, his observer, a sharp-eyed and quick-moving young soldier in B Troop, went up to the Saigon River 27 miles northwest of the city of the same name.
CWO William Kane, the pilot and WO John A. Garrison were in the Cobra gunship, circling over the darting little scout helicopter to put in rockets and bullets if Tuck and Edward got into trouble.
Military Strike
These four soldiers were sent out to accomplish what the U.S. State Dept. hasn't been able to accomplish by diplomacy and refuses to allow ended by a military strike at the source - to stop enemy soldiers from coming down the river from Cambodia to strike Saigon again.
Officially, their mission, given them by the 25th Infantry Division which
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is the unit B Troop supports in this area, was "to observe and engage enemy troops" infiltrating down the Saigon River.
The choppers worked out the classic pattern of these light hunter-killer teams. Tuck went right down to the deck while the Cobra lurked up above him. The scout looked for places where the enemy could hide during daylight hours. He found one. The strip of palm and brush and scrubby trees on the river bank. It is unbelievable to watch a scout at work in the little LOH choppers. Knowledgeable soldiers who don't have first hand experience with air cavalry fighting methods still argue that helicopters are "vulnerable." The scouts from air cavalry outfits are the most impressive answer I've ever seen in warfare to that kind of thing.
Zipped Over
Tuck saw a suspicious place, the brush "looked wrong," and zipped over there. He checked the place which intrigued him and Edwards by hovering over it and blowing the brush aside with his rotor wash, a rather unique technique in that business.
He uncovered a tunnel entrance as the camouflage put there by the occupants was blown away. He made a tight turn and flew back to look inside.
LOH pilots look inside of holes and through hut doors as routinely as they use their rotors to blow away camouflage.
Observers also routinely destroy occupied bunkers by throwing a hand grenade into the firing port from the helicopter. Tear gas tossed into a hut door can separate any innocent occupants from armed enemies [text missing]
. . . est mission you can think of: some real hairbrained military adventure, and I'll walk out the door and get enough volunteers to do it just by walking down the road and asking people. Special? Hell yes, they're special! Just good average American soldiers is how special they are!"
So these two special men, Capt. Tuck and PFC Edwards, were down there on the brush top, out on the Saigon river, poking into a new enemy position with the little helicopter, doing their jobs.
They circled and flew into a cloud of bullets. Machine guns and AK-47's blazed all along the brush line at the little helicopter.
One single bullet hit the darting, weaving little chopper. It also smashed through Tuck's left leg, smashing both bones, and tore on into Edward's left leg.
The Cobra roared down and put death into the brush line fort of the enemy with rockets and machine guns.
Tuck's legs were paralyzed from shock and pain. He couldn't move the pedals to control the rudder. Edwards was in great pain. Both men were bleeding badly.
"Hold it in the air, turn back toward Cu Chi (10 miles away) while I get a tourniquet on this leg, then I'll take it and you can get to yours," Tuck told Edwards. He was losing blood badly then, a steady spurt of it.
Edwards tried. Tuck managed to bend down in the cramped cockpit but suddenly saw Edwards slump over the controls. The LOH went into a suicide plunge toward the flooded swamps.
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