2Lt Roger Colclough on Recon

From Possum Control: "VC Flags sighted in trees near route 328. Investigate and advise."

We were about five clicks east of the sighting when our CP radioed us the information, so I headed straight for the area. We flew low over route 328 until we came to a large section of dry rice paddis. There, atop a lone clump of trees in the middle of one of the fields, fluttered two VC flags. The yellow stars on their red-and-blue background stuck out like a dog's balls against the sky. It was a bold thumbing of the nose by the VC, I knew the flags hadn't been there during my first recon early in the morning. The local rice workers would have seen the culprits, but none of them were in the fields, they'd cleared out early. That was an ominous sign.

Already the radio call from our command post had alerted a USAF FAC who monitored our net, and he'd arrived a few minutes before us. I recognised the aircraft: it was our old mate, Jade Zero Six. He was circling low over the trees like a hungry buzzard. I saw his aircraft slow as the flaps were lowered, then, on the verge of a stall, make a low pass over the flags. I wondered what he was up to.

“Jesus, look at him!” my observer, Private Moore yelled. "The bugger's trying to snatch our flags!”

I stared at the Bird Dog. Trailing from the rear cockpit was a line attacked to a tiny grappling hook!

“The Bastard!” I swore, suddenly outraged that a Yank was going to steal our trophies. I gunned the throttle and pushed the chopper towards the flags. Zero Six saw me, then dropped in on my tail. Although slower, I had about two hundred metres start.

As we approached the first flag I told Moore to check out the top of the tree. I was wary, it looked like a set-up to me.

“Nothing, Sir!” Private Moore insisted as we neared the flag. He was leaning out of the door, peering into the trees. The rotor wash thrashed at the branches, sending leaves swirling into the cockpit.

“You sure?” It sounded too good to be true.

Surely the VC weren't going to waste two perfectly good flags.

“Yes Sir, this one's tied to the branches.” Moore reached out as we drifted by.

 I hope it's not tied too securely, I thought as he seized it. We were travelling at about ten knots. For a moment it looked as if he'd either lose an arm or be dragged from his seat harness as he hung on with a determined grip. But the flag pulled free and he hauled it aboard. He held it up. This wasn't some patchwork rag run up in a jungle tailor's shop. It was made from pure silk, beautifully woven and stitched. It had to be a Ho Chi Min original, made in North Vietnam.

“Okay, Sir, that's one for you,”

Moore grinned as he bundled the flag and stuffed it at his feet.

“Now let's get mine!” He pointed to the second flag.

I'd already decided we'd pushed our luck far enough. One flag was enough. I opened the throttle as we headed towards the second flag about twenty metres away. I knew we were going too fast for Moore to be able to snatch it, but to keep him happy I told him to check the tree-top, as if I intended turning for another pass.

“It's clear!” he called as we whipped past the fluttering silk.

At that instant everything turned red. The chopper felt as if it had been struck from beneath by a giant sledge-hammer. We were thrown forward and up. There were clanging sounds like gravel on a tin roof. The tree had been mined! Fortunately the engine behind us took the force of the blast otherwise I'm sure we would have been shredded as fragments ripped through the aircraft.

My immediate reaction was to get the hell out of the place. Surprisingly, the engine still responded. I nudged the rudder pedals and turned away, but as I did so I heard Jade Zero Six call over the radio: “Better put it down, son. You're on fire.”

Because he said it so calmly, yet with such fatherly authority I didn't ask questions. I headed for the road, but as I lined up, the engine quit. I auto-rotated, pulled pitch and flared a few feet above the ground. As we lost speed I knew Zero Six wasn't bull-shitting; flames that had been forced back by the slipstream now blew forward and wrapped around the cockpit.

We skidded to a halt, scrambled out and ran for our lives, we wanted to put as much distance between us and the aircraft as possible. In the cockpit I carried white phosphorous grenades and they'd cook off any second.

We'd gone about fifty metres when warning bells sounded in my brain. “Landmines!,” I shouted.

We both went up on our toes like fire-walkers on a bed of glowing coals. I couldn't see any landmines, but the imagination works against you in these situations: in this country the next step could be your last.

So we hot footed it to the edge of the road and took a flying leap towards a drainage ditch. While in mid-air another bell clanged: “Pungi Stakes!”

By sheer effort of will we defied gravity to convert a headlong dive into a feet-first landing. Fortunately there were no pungi stakes waiting to impale us; just hard, dry clay. We scrambled into the ditch and took cover.

Private Moore was carrying the M-60. He set it up and aimed it down the road. I looked back at the chopper, it was burning to a crisp. The WP grenades cooked off with muffled bangs, sending white trails arcing gracefully into the sky. I remember thinking: That's just cost the taxpayers a hundred grand!

“VC!” Private Moore yelled.

I turned to see an ox cart about two hundred metres away. It had rounded a corner of the road and was lumbering towards us. Sitting on the cart, spurring the plodding animal with a bamboo pole was a sleepy Vietnamese peasant wearing a conical straw hat. He pushed on head down, oblivious to the drama ahead of him.

Moore was convinced we were facing a VC cavalry charge. He cranked a round into the M-60's breech and before I could say Ho Chi Min, opened up. Fortunately for the driver, Moore's aim was bad.

Inspired by the hail of bullets crackling over his head, the driver sprang to life. He wheeled the creaking cart around and took off like Ben Hur. The ancient wagon obviously wasn't built for speed; it had only gone about fifty metres when both wheels popped off and bounced away into the paddy field. The driver remained standing on the skidding tray, cracking his whip over his head at the pounding oxen. He disappeared around the corner in a cloud of dust, pursued by wild streams of tracer.

I looked at Moore, remembering my training on the M-60, controlled bursts of five to ten rounds, said the book. Moore was doing anything but. His finger was glued to the trigger in what looked like an attempt to fire the longest sustained burst ever achieved with the weapon. The gun's deafening buda-buda-buda made it impossible to talk. The ammo belt was disappearing like a snake down a rabbit hole while cartridge cases were piling in a glistening mound on the other side. Moore himself was vanishing inside a cloud of smoke and dust. Finally all I could see was a swirling blue cordite haze with a pair of boots sticking out one end and a red-hot barrel out the other.

The last tracer flickered into the sky and the bolt clunked on an empty chamber. As the smoke cloud drifted away, Moore eased the sizzling gun from his shoulder. He looked at me with satisfaction.

I had to admit he'd frightened the VC cavalry away very effectively. But he'd used all our ammunition and missed the target, quite a remarkable feat seeing he'd fired almost a hundred rounds at the poor bugger. Anyway, it seemed we weren't going to have to make a stand of it, Jade Zero Six had called for help and it was already starting to arrive.

Jade Zero Six

Last thing I wanted to see was an Aussie casualty. So as the chopper dropped toward the road I put out a call on my TAC AIR frequency: Aussie pilot down! The replies were immediate.

 You guys had established such a gutsy reputation that we considered it a privilege to be able to help. In Fact, because I'd called on TAC AIR frequency, aircraft from all over Vietnam were coming up and offering assistance. I think I could've redirected the entire US air effort into Phuoc Tuy Province within five minutes. If I'd wanted a B-52 strike, I could've got it.

 I saw the two crewmen clear the burning chopper and make it to a ditch beside the road. When one of them opened up with his M-60 I knew they were in trouble. So I called again: Aussies under attack, get your asses here fast!

To Roger Colclough it looked as if the entire US Air Force war arriving:

First in was a Heavy Fire Team, three Huey gunships. They clattered over the rice field and immediately set about laying suppressing fire along the jungle fringe. They pumped the jungle full of bullets and explosive, using mini-guns, rockets and 40mm grenade launchers. The noise was deafening. They'd only been at it a few minutes when another Heavy Fire Team wheeled in and joined them. That made six gunships blazing away as if they'd found Ho Chi Min himself. Then, in the middle of this, four F-100s dropped down to join the party. Each carried about the same bomb load as a World War Two B-17. They quickly started adding napalm and bombs to the show. I thought, Shit, there must be an NVA regiment coming after us!

We were terrified, but simultaneously fascinated by the fireworks display. I saw more aircraft forming an orderly “cab rank” high overhead, tracing lazy patterns in the sky as they waited their turn to be called down by the FAC. It looked like the entire US Air Force was getting in on the act including F-4 Phantoms and even Navy A4 Skyhawks.

One thing the Americans know how to do well is use air power. In a few minutes I could see order forming among the chaos. The two Heavy Fire Teams were working the jungle fringe east, while the F-100s blasted it west of our position. We were in the middle of a zone protected by parallel walls of explosive. Jade Zero Six circled overhead, marking the target with smoke rockets, issuing directions, while nimbly avoiding the big jets as they streaked in, dropped their loads, then powered away using afterburners.

Down the middle of this aerial rodeo bored a US Army Dust-Off Huey. It skimmed the rice field then flared on the road beside us like a check-reigned stallion. As the skids bumped the ground, a huge hairy arm reached out, seized me by the shirt and dragged me aboard. Private Moore was likewise plucked up and dumped beside me. The chopper lifted off and headed for Nui Dat. I later learned we'd been on the ground less than five minutes.

Ned Kelly - back in the bunker

We heard the action over our flight net. A small crowd had gathered around the PRC-25, reminding me of Saturday afternoon at the racetrack as we egged Roger on in his contest with Jade Zero Six. To us it sounded as if what started out as a minor incident had escalated into a major battle.

For a painful moment we though Roger and his observer had bought it, but after a few minutes the rescue chopper came up on our frequency and announced both were okay. Private Moore had taken a shrapnel wound to his foot, but was otherwise fine. We breathed a collective sigh of relief.

I spoke with Jade Zero Six on our flight net and we soon pieced together what had happened. The second flag had been placed near an explosive charge concealed in the top of the tree. When Roger passed over it, his rotor wash tripped a device that detonated the charge, or maybe it was command detonated. However it was done it seems this contrivance was intended to catch an aircraft, it certainly wouldn't have worked against anything else. We grudgingly admitted it, the VC were bloody resourceful. At first we were reluctant to use the words “booby trap” however, we later agreed it was the cunningest booby trap we'd ever heard of and credited Charley with one helicopter on the command post war scoreboard.

Fortunately it was the only time we lost an aircraft this way. A few weeks later, there were reports of flags temptingly fluttering from trees in other provinces, but we never heard of anyone falling for it again. Bad news spreads fast. (see accompanying debrief. Ed)

Roger's charred Sioux was recovered by Chinook and slung back to the airfield later that afternoon. It was a write-off. The airframe had taken so many shrapnel hits it looked as if it had been attacked by white ants. Both fuel tanks had fist-sized holes punched through them, allowing avgas to drench the engine.

Testimony that flags can fight back
Photo courtesy Owen Eather
Lifted by Chinook back to base, the Sioux was a write-off. Note the holes in the fuel tanks. After the incident the standard witch-hunt followed, however the OC of 161, Maj George Constable covered for his pilot in his usual calm fashion. Sufficient mud was thrown at the story to bamboozle the brass long enough for the incident to be eclipsed by the TET offensive. However discussions with retired senior officers from Task Force HQ thirty years later, revealed that no one was fooled for one moment. The consensus of opinion was that everyone had learned a salutory lesson and that the $120,000 replacement cost of the aircraft was more than worth the creation of an enduring war story. The aircraft was A1-400

Roger and his observer had been lucky. If they'd been travelling a few knots slower the explosion would have been in front of the chopper. With only a plastic bubble to shield them, both men would've been mincemeat. They were also fortunate to have Jade Zero Six to call in help quickly, even if his antics had prompted Roger to stretch his luck too far. The irony of it all was that the flag they'd captured was left in the cockpit in their hurry to escape. It burned to a crisp, along with Roger's brand new Pentax camera he'd bought while on R and R leave in Hong Kong a few weeks before.