Combat Search and Rescue: That Others May Live. Leave No Man Behind

By Don Dunaway

A first hand look at the way Combat Search And Rescue was conducted when it really came into its own during the Vietnam War, as seen through the eyes of a fixed-wing pilot who volunteered for the job of employing and supporting the Jolly Green helicopters in their efforts. And since not every day resulted in a shoot down of friendly aircrews, a look at how the rest of the one year tour of duty was occupied when rescues were not imminent, plus some of the more entertaining diversions pilots can conjure up when allowed to exercise their innate talents for such.

Because of the mission, manning and reputation of the 602nd Fighter Squadron (Commando), the fixed wing portion of the Rescue Force that went after downed aircrews in Southeast Asia, the author volunteered to join and served with that unit from June 1968 to June 1969. Six months after completing his tour and returning stateside he retired from Active Duty to the family cattle ranch where his wife and children stayed during his combat tour. His youngest son insisted that he write of his experiences during that tour and this book is the result that evolved over the years. The author lives in Northern Oklahoma with his wife of 65 years, and is doing research for another, unrelated book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 13, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796066388

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Copyright © 2019 by Don Dunaway.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 11/12/2019

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

Author’s Foreword

Introduction

The Aircraft

Survival Training

New Home

First Mission

Filling Squares

Watering Holes

The Mission

The Firefly Mission

Time Out

Ground Crews

First Rescue

RESCAP

Odd Jobs

Tchepone

Missed One

Tchepone, Again

Sunrise Service

Missed Another One

Go Kill Somethin’

Last Mission

Speaking Tour

Conclusion

Glossarium

Dedication

It has long been said that military husbands should come with a Technical Manual fraught with Notes, Cautions and Warnings, like any other well regulated, well written Tech Order. And much has been written about how those who stay behind while the husband does his military duty cope with the hardships, crises and stresses created by that separation. These familial splits are painful for all involved, but they are a necessary evil of the military system that knows no better way to accomplish the primary mission. And the Mission must of course, always be the winning consideration.

While the coping techniques take many different forms and enjoy varying degrees of success, any family that prevails in such an unpleasant ordeal cannot be praised too highly. In maintaining their family structure and identity, in doing well what is needful of doing in the day-to-day routine and, in the process they become an even more exemplary asset to their community and nation. They are deserving of any and all praise that might be directed their way. So the result of this writing is dedicated to my family who stayed behind and persevered, coped and lived their lives as best they could under extremely trying circumstances. But it is dedicated especially to my son Dub who cared enough about it to insist that it be written. This is nothing more or less than my best answer to that timeless and eternally recurring question in every generation and every society; What did you do in the war, daddy?

As I begin I cannot but be mindful of the husbands and fathers of my own acquaintance, and the untold thousands I never met, who sacrificed all their tomorrows in answering their Nation’s call. As a result their families are forever barred the opportunity and satisfaction of hearing of their warrior’s achievements, their successes and failures, and their warrior’s perceptions of the horrors of the war they fought. I know my family would endorse and join with me in the dedication of the writing of this collection of narratives to theDedication memory of those who can never, and it is with a profound sense of obligation, duty and gratitude that I commence the relating of my year of combat, June 1968 to June 1969, in THAT WAR, the Southeast Asian conflict.

Acknowledgments

Although I have exercised a modest amount of literary license, most of the named characters in this writing are not fictional. Many of them tried for and achieved varying degrees of anonymity. Some of them even attained a degree of invisibility which was usually corrected with a good night’s sleep; but fictional was not one of their attributes.

It is with sincere gratitude for much-needed and un-stinting assistance that I acknowledge the generous help of the Brothers Bain.

Darrel is an accomplished author, savant, gentleman and scholar with two tours as a medic in THAT WAR, as well as a long list of published titles and other achievements on his resume. His expert guidance has proven to be priceless.

His younger (but not much) brother Gary Bain, Captain, USMC (Ret), whose rescue at Tchepone as Manual 42 I did not get in on, has three ejections from jet aircraft on his resume. His severe shortage of landings notwithstanding, his varied aviation experience, his wide knowledge and boundless enthusiasm, and his unimpeachable integrity and character continue to be treasured resources. He’s got me convinced that in his next life he wants to be a Sandy. He will be a good’un!

I would be remiss in the extreme if I did not also acknowledge the aid and inputs of my wife Barbra, my own in-house English and Composition teacher. Her suggestions, critiques and encouragement have been more closely akin to lifesaving than to mere production enhancement.

Author’s Foreword

There are many good books relating various aspects of Combat Search and Rescue; scholarly, authoritative, thoroughly researched and well-written books of source material quality and as I am not quoting them I will refer to them no further. Reading any of them is highly recommended, not only for the captivating stories they tell but for a wider and better understanding of the technological advances that have been made to accomplish the mission at hand: the safe retrieval and return of aircrews from a hostile ground environment.

This writing is intended solely as a collection of narratives of my involvement in this worthy effort with references only to munitions, resources and tactics as needed for the telling of a particular story. It tries to capture the events, environment and emotions from the perspective of a human, a husband and father, and a hands-on fighter pilot. Some will disagree with my perceptions and memories and that’s okay; I would probably disagree with some of theirs as well. If the reader finds anything about it that might be considered scholarly or even approaching the literary, be not dismayed, it is purely accidental and will soon be corrected.

To explain some of my methodology; I find it expedient to italicize those instances meant to designate what passes for thought processes within a cockpit, or musings of one kind or another in that space between the earphones of a helmet. In other places italics are used simply to add emphasis where I think emphasis is called for. Bold text will mark the first reference to something expanded in the Glossary, but only to the first one.

If you, the reader, have no background in aviation matters, it might be a good idea for you to read the glossary first. Not only will this introduce you to some of the aviation jargon that is necessarily used throughout the book, it will also give you a broad hint as to the primary method used throughout the book: which is TONGUE IN CHEEK.

Although some, but not much, allegiance to chronology is maintained as one narrative relates to the next, there is no story line or thread of continuity that runs between the narratives and each is sufficient unto itself. That should make it a good bathroom book, but even in that guise it should be read just like your first reader; left to right, top to bottom and front to back.

Introduction

IN 1967 THE VIETNAM WAR had been dragging on, as wars tend to do when there is no interest in or intention of winning, for at least six years and President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s half-vast and pretentious efforts to win it were proving to be painfully inadequate. It was obvious to anyone who cared to look, that in spite of posturing and protestations to the contrary, winning was not the uppermost thing on the collective mind in Washington D.C. They just wanted you to think it was.

THAT WAR was initially undertaken with the noblest of intentions; stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia and secure peace, freedom and democracy for the South Vietnamese people. But our national leaders, educated only in self-serving back-room politics rather than in the profession of arms, and paying much more attention to pollsters, protesters and news-anchors than their own generals, were not up to the task of even pseudo-generalship. Thus the micro-management and gross mismanagement by inept politicians and their even more inept political appointees, plus self-serving and obviously corrupt indigenous officials, had THAT WAR in such a chaotic quagmire that the only thing still honorably salvageable was personal conduct.

With the national leadership looking for a satisfactory political solution, the war continued to drag on and the nation’s blood and treasure continued to be prodigally expended. It bears repeating that our ground forces won every battle, took every objective, achieved every identified goal and given the go-ahead and resources to do so would have beaten back every advance by the opposing forces. But obviously we didn’t want to do that! For any who might take exception to such an assessment, I refer them back to the Glossary and ROE. Yeah, yeah, I know; it wasn’t the Army’s fault their effectiveness diminished sharply when they forted up in Firebases and quit trying to out-guerrilla the guerrillas. But that’s another story and I wouldn’t want the Army to think I was trying to tell them how to fight a ground war; or how any of them should interpret their own dog-eared copy of Von Clausewitz.

At the time of which I write, President Johnson was garnering well deserved criticism, ridicule and even worse from the networks, publishers and jungle-dwelling grunts. While he was busy resigning the Presidency by self-serving-default instead of standing up and being the leader the nation needed and deserved, the military-friendly-press, (as opposed to the military-hostile, far-left, liberal press) was replete with glowing reports of outstanding accomplishment by units of all services and missions.

One that particularly caught my eye was about an outfit dedicated to the recovery and return of downed aircrews that had run afoul of communist defenses. This unit was the 602nd Fighter Squadron (Commando) who flew old US Navy planes, call sign Sandy, and was the fixed wing portion of the rescue force in support of the Jolly Green rescue helicopters in their dangerous but admirable efforts.

The entire Rescue Force was said to be manned by older, more senior pilots, who were all volunteers since the mission was so very important and could be so very dangerous, therefore calling for experience and judgment found only in older heads.

Such a mission made the administration’s high-level intrigues and hidden agendas seem petty by comparison. Washington had obviously made the conscious decision to not win the war, but they were just as obviously going to continue to lose planes and aircrews with no apparent legitimate purpose, or end, in sight. So the Rescue Forces would continue to have a righteous mission, and given the obvious intent to capitulate, one of only three that had any nobility of purpose. The other two were the care of the needlessly wounded and that of the Casualty Officers, who got no publicity or sympathy whatever for their gut-wrenching task of notifying the devastated families of the needlessly killed.

But the same military-friendly-press reported that there were not enough volunteers interested in performing such a righteous and rightful mission, and it was easy to see that the laudatory articles were nothing but poorly disguised recruiting efforts.

That old Navy airplane, the Douglas A-1 Skyraider, was famous in its own right for things other than rescue support. Major Bernie Fischer, MOH, made it look like he had a flying tank that could be made to do absolutely anything the pilot wanted when he landed on an abandoned, debris-cluttered runway in the A Shau Valley and plucked his own wingman from the jaws of certain captivity or death. I would be less than candid and forthright if I did not freely admit to that particular operation also being an inspiration and motivation. Anyone who finds no inspiration in the actions resulting in the award of a Medal of Honor simply cannot be inspired.

Again, this was 1967 and even though it was painfully obvious that we were no longer fighting for anyone else’s freedom, much less our own, it looked to me like more people would be interested in doing something worthy and substantive and noble instead of just holding back and hoping that Johnson would complete his capitulation before the personnel Mafia found out they were still alive and available.

I was on the phone to the Flight Safety Officer career-keeper in Air Defense Command Headquarters Personnel at Colorado Springs, trying to use his crystal ball to see what was in my own future. [Passed over for promotion to Major in the last promotion cycle; and with a new Vice Commander whose wife was pregnant for the umpteenth time and who took his own career, as well as other, frustrations out on those nearest him, I freely admit I was eagerly and earnestly looking for a heapin’ helpin’ of elsewhere.] Since the man watching over my career was bemoaning the fact that he was unable to meet his levied quota for all the different flying jobs Air Force Military Personnel was laying on him, I thought I might ease his own pain a bit while going over his list of possibles.

Because of my Air Division Chief of Safety job I was combat ready in the F-102 Delta Dagger; had recently been combat ready in the F-101B Voodoo and was Instructor Pilot and Functional Check Flight qualified in the T-33, but none of these were being used in THAT WAR. I had been at Luke for more than four years, so was vulnerable to being moved practically anywhere in the world to fill any one of his multiple levies.

Thinking I might fill one of his levies for him, I asked him what some of them were. He must have thought I was only making a social call because when he realized what I had asked for he responded with, Hey! You can’t just call up here and pick an assignment! Whattaya think this is?! Anyway?

Well, if you’re going to be that way about it… Without even asking whether it was one of his levies or not; without talking it over with the family or any other preparatory niceties, my response was the unequivocal statement that I wanted the next available A-1 training slot he could get his hands on, with the end-unit-of-assignment to be the 602nd Fighter Squadron (Commando) at Udorn RTAFB, Thailand. He immediately became much less hostile, even moderately civil and borderline giggly. He may have been so relieved, excited and thrilled he wet himself, but that’s only a guess.

It wasn’t long before my reassignment orders came through exactly the way I had specified. Of course I would have to go to the Air Force Survival School at Fairchild AFB, Washington and to the Jungle Survival School at Clark Air Base in the Philippines as well as the aircraft training at Hurlburt Field, Florida. But bring it on, let’s get it on!

Having never heard or seen a shot actually fired in combat, much less been the triggerman at such an event, I legitimately wondered how I would acquit myself under the stresses of combat, as every untried warrior must. But it would be unequaled pleasure to serve in a unit that was manned only by volunteers and whose primary mission was of such a high and noble purpose; and whose execution would answer for me the most basic of human questions, "What am I made of?

The Aircraft

IN THE AGE OF JET ENGINES and