The story of Jim Moore and Charlie Johnson and two flight crew flying night
fire support missions during heavy monsoon rain brought back Pat Eastes' memory
of that mission. Very interesting process, how senior veterans memories work,
but all of us can probably associate with Pat's recall here.
After reading Charlie's story Pat responded with
the following note to Charlie:
Holy Shit! I just read your Jim Moore entry, and I
was either flying with you or with Jim on that mission. I thought that over the
years I was hallucinating about the near mid air, but you put it in words that
brought it all back in a big way, and just as I remembered it. I don't know if
it was on that mission or another monsoon debacle, but I recall using FM homing
to find Cu Chi as the tower operator would key his mic to give us a bearing.
Scary stuff, even not thinking about it.
I remember seeing the red glow from the oncoming
aircraft's instrument panel during that near mid air. I'm sure, upon
recollection, that I was flying right seat and was actually driving during the
incident, and that I performed a very coordinated right bank (probably yanked
the cyclic as hard as I could without going inverted). How we missed each other
is beyond me. As far as using the FM homing, I remember flying directly over the
tower a couple of times, all the while losing altitude very carefully, and the
tower operator would give us a 'mark' as we passed over. I will probably relive
that flight in my dreams tonight.
Do you remember blowing up a bunch of sampans on
the Saigon River near Dau Tieng immediately after the Christmas truce (also
known as the VC/NVA rearmament period). That was another wet flight, but we
did put some shit down on the bad guys at around 1701, one minute after the
end of the 'truce'.
Charlie responded to Pat with the following note:
Thanks for the prompt
feedback Pat.
I think you may have
been flying with Jim Moore that night, if we are recalling the same
night. I'm pretty sure I would have remembered our flying together
because you would have hogged all the stick time and I would have sat
quietly in the left seat and taken care of the worrying. I expect all of
us had more than one incident in which we flew some part of a flight IFR.
IFR in most cases meaning I Follow Roads but there were many places,
with weather like we had that night, we wouldn't have known it if there
had been a road right under us.
It might help to flesh
out the monsoon flight story if you can dredge up enough memory
particles to add some additional details to this story. After reading
your comments about homing in on the Cu Chi tower I started recalling
that we tried that too but our altitude was so low because of the solid
overcast that we were not able to do that until we got real close. By
then we were trucking up the MSR (Main Supply Route from Cu Chi to Tay
Ninh) toward Cu Chi anyway. We can add it to the existing story or start
a new one. I hope you are able to do that. Your story telling, and
writing ability, far exceeds mine. It would be very helpful if you are
able to do that.
Even better would be
for you and Doc Halliday to have about twelve beers and swap stories.
One of those episodes would get us ten or twenty stories. I would almost
buy a ticket to sit in on that session.
As a small addition to
this story I recall talking with Tom Fleming a few years ago about what
each of us had as the significant or overarching memory of our time with
D Troop. Mine was the feeling that the dry season was about six weeks
long and the monsoon season was about ten months long and every time the
weather was more than the usual lousy I was on #1 Gunteam being awakened
sometime between 10:00 pm and 4:00 am. Holy Wet Flightsuit
Batman*&%#*%#.
Your turn Doc.