Excerpts from:
PROJECT CHECO
EVASION AND ESCAPE, SEA
1964-1971
Notes from JHB:
Ban Phanop is in the Dog House about 8 miles south of the
border with NVN in Mu Gia.
The coordinates on JOG NE 48-11 are about 17 deg 32 min N; 105 deg 45 min E.
From p. 28:
Comments on the effectiveness of training at the
Jungle Survival School at Clark AB, PI
I
stepped out-[of the harness] and, just like the guys said, I wanted to run like
hell as soon as my feet hit the ground. So again, I went back to the only thing
I had to go on, what the guys here at the survival school had said. So I did
what Sgt Martino there always preaches, and I reached down and got my canteen
out and washed the taste of fear down my throat.
The Captain was shot down on December 20th and was
rescued the following day, after spending the night under a fallen log in the jungle., His survival school training had negated any fear
he might have of the Jungle, and in fact, he slept most of the night in his
hideaway. 54/
Captain
O'Brian's two and a half weeks with his unit before
going down in enemy territory was by no means a record. The record was held by
a young man who graduated from the school and went on to his unit in
From pages 39-49
Comments about special rescues, including the famous
one for Boxer 22 Bravo, mentioned previously by Gerry Frazier:
... The descent didn't take long. I could see I was
going to land in the trees so I tucked my head and covered my face with my
arms. I drifted slightly and the survival kit caught in the tops of the trees.
The chute pulled me from a vertical to a horizontal position. The chute snared
itself and I was hung by the chute and the survival kit just as if I were in a
hammock... I made sure the chute could support my weight before I released the
kit. I lowered myself to the ground using the tree lowering device (PLD)...
That piece of equipment really came in handy. Without it I would have been
stuck up in the trees. I had to leave the seat kit up there in order to get
down.
The
Captain bailed out late in the afternoon, and it was dark before the Pedro
(HH-43) arrived on the scene. By voice vector and strobe light,
helicopter-positioning by its sound, he brought the helicopter in to his
position. In a lightly contested area, the Pedro risked using his landing
lights, saw the survivor, and dropped the penetrator
to extract him. 79/
Boxer 22 Bravo and Wolf 06 Alpha
Two of the most spectacular evasions and recoveries in
the SEA conflict were so similar that they gave the observer a head- shaking
feeling of deja vu – “I feel that I've been here
before.” They also illustrated the sound evasion and SAR principles developed
over the period of conflict. Both crewmembers were shot down near Ban Phanop, a karst-studded,
crater-pocked valley about ten miles south of Mu Gia Pass, one of the primary infiltration routes from
(See Project CHECO report, “Rescue at Ban Phanop.”)
In
the first incident, Boxer 22, an F-4C from Cam Ranh
Bay Air Base, SVN, took crippling antiaircraft hits at the bottom of its dive
run, and both pilot and navigator had to eject immediately. The navigator, Lt.
Woodrow Bergeron, later recalled: 80/
We
rolled in from 17,000 feet, jinking as we came in. We
pickled (dropped the ordnance) at about 5,000 feet, and then.,
“Boom,” we got hit and the plane lurched at a steep angle as we were bringing
the nose up. The nose still wasn't coming up all the way, so I got into
position for an ejection.
I
had good body position and I was sure my visor was down. My helmet was
fastened. I didn't feet any tumbling, but the windblast tore my helmet off,
cutting my nose. Seat separation was automatic. I could steer my chute a bit., and I could -see a 12. 7mm weapon
firing at me from the east. I could also see a man on the ground. I
steered for a ten foot by ten' foot clearing the last thirty feet to the
ground. I didn't deploy my seatpack because I didn't
want to give the gunner a better target.
Lieutenant
Bergeron hit the ground running, on one side of the
The
valley was alive with enemy guns, from small arms through machine guns to 37mm
and 57mm antiaircraft guns (AAA). Most of the small arms were on the west side
of the river, where the pilot had come down, but the AAA was in the karst on the east side about 300 meters from the navigator.
When the A-1E “Serious” and the Jolly Greens arrived they were given a bruising
welcome by these guns. The Lieutenant and his pilot were both in touch with the
SARTF throughout the day, and although six pickup attempts were made before
darkness, all six were driven off by the gunfire. At 1400 hours, the Pararescue Jumper (PJ) aboard one of the Jolly Greens was
wounded critically; he died en route to Nakhon Phanom. Later in the afternoon another helicopter came
close to the pilot's position, but took a hit in the rotor blades and had to
egress. 82/
When the last rescue attempt failed, at 1730 hours,
the On-Scene Commander, Sandy 01, notified the downed airmen that it was
getting too dark for continued operations that day and that they would return
at first light in the morning. Lieutenant Bergeron stayed in a clump of bamboo
where he had hidden, and he and the pilot kept in radio contact through the
night. Neither slept. 83/
At
0600 in the morning, the SAR Task Force returned to the area, considerably
bulwarked with additional strike aircraft.-Along with the HC-130 “King”
Airborne Mission Commander (AMC), were four Jolly Greens, 12 A-1s, and a
constantly cycling number of jets. The SAR force made contact with Lt. Bergeron
but not with the pilot, and then went to work sanitizing the area with bombs
and CBU (Cluster Bomb Units). An hour later the navigator told the Sandy that
he had just heard excited voices across the river, followed by a long burst of
automatic weapons fire and a scream from the pilot. 84/
Throughout the day the Task Force saturated the area
with bombs, rockets, bullets, and CBU. After it was suggested that the enemy
might well be using the downed survivor as “bait” for a flak trap, the SARTF
laid in white phosphorus smoke bombs and incendiary CBU-22s, for a protective
screen, and augmented the screen with riot control agent (RCA) CBUs to lower the enemy gunners' effectiveness. Paveway (laser guided bombs), Bullpup
missiles, and Walleyes (electro-optically guided bombs) struck the gun
emplacements all day, while numerous attempts were made to get helicopters in
to the survivor. He scrambled up a sheer rock wall to get' to one of them
hovering beyond the bank, but when he got to just about six feet of it, it was
forced out of the area by groundfire. 85//
The SAR effort was again forced to stop operations for
the day when darkness once more closed in. The last helicopter approach was
made too late for Lt. Bergeron to return to his bamboo clump. He ran instead to
the roots of a nearby tree and began to dig in under them. This probably saved
his life, for about 15 minutes after nightfall, two enemy soldiers approached
his former hiding place and, after throwing an unexploded tear-gas canister
into the bamboo clump, emptied a clip of automatic weapons fire into it. 86/
After they left, Lt. Bergeron tried to swim the river
but found it too difficult. Instead he took cover under a riverbank bush for
the 87/ night. He later said:
During the night I began to hallucinate. I envisioned
two members of my squadron were with me, discussing my plans of action. I was
subject to sporadic rounds of mortar fire from time to time, but none of them
came near me. The only time I became seriously concerned was at dawn. I knew
the enemy knew I was hiding out somewhere on the bank of the river and it was
just a matter of time before they would find me. Thank God.,
however, the Sandies were there early on the third
day.
The first rescue attempt on the third morning was made
just before
At
1140, the task force was readied for another attempt. With ten A-1s
on one side of the river, and 12 on the other forming a protective ring around
Bergeron, the helicopter made a dash for his position. The Lieutenant ran out
into the river, waving his white-border evasion and escape chart to identify
himself. The Jolly Green went past him, made a 360 degree turn to come back,
and lowered the penetrator. They hoisted him aboard, then made a rapid exit from the scene. In this attempt,
there was no appreciable gunfire; as one member of the rescue party commented, “They
were all either dead or had given up.” 89/
The
ride back to Nakhon Phanom
was uneventful and, once there, Lt. Bergeron had a chance to meet many of the
people who had worked so hard in his behalf for three days and two nights. A
total of 336 sorties had been flown in the operation. (Photo,
following page.) 90/
Wolf 06, an F-4D, took off from Udorn
RTAFB in late afternoon of
The
Captain described what happened:
I
started to let down again as we approached Ban Phanop.
As we reached the western mouth we were at about 7,000 feet. The Lieutenant
made the comment that this was Boxer 22 country. I replied, “Yes, it's the most
God forsaken place in the world.”
As
we crossed Ban Phanop I showed him the supply trails
along the road, the bulldozer stall, and several other items of interest. Our
altitude had gotten down to about 5,500 feet to 6,500 feet. As we were going
toward Mu Gia, two 37m guns
started firing at us from our left. They were about six-level gunners, not very
accurate., but I thought it would be a good chance to
show the Lieutenant what gunfire looks like so I pulled up sharply into a left
turn to keep them in sight and break into the tracers. By this time it was
getting dark and the tracers were clearly visible.
I
told him to follow the tracers back to the ground to locate the revetments. One
of the guns fired another round and he said., “Roger,
I have the revetments.”
At
this time I followed my normal procedure of starting to break in the other
direction in case someone was firing from my blind side. As I started to roll
the airplane to the right I saw a huge red fireball approaching from the right
that seemed to be about ten feet from the airplane. In my opinion this was a
57mm round because I didn't see any other tracers and a 37mm usually has three
or four tracers per string. The size of the blast and the stopping power also
led me to believe it was a 57mm.
When
I saw the fireball, I knew we were hit. I heard the backseater
scream., “We're hit.”
The aircraft instantly burst into flame and plunged
abruptly into a “high negative-G” dive or spin. Under the adverse “G” conditions,
it was difficult to get out, but the pilot and navigator managed to eject at
about 5,000 feet. The time was approximately 1825 local time.
Captain Rash recounted: 93/
The
next thing I knew I was in my chute. I lost my helmet on ejection. There was no
chance to select an emergency heading because we only had about three or four
seconds between the time we were hit and when we
ejected. I don't remember the backseater ejecting or my leaving the airplane. I just
remember being in my chute. I deployed my seatpack
and pulled my survival radio out. I began to transmit on Guard that I was down
in Ban Phanop valley. I noticed at this time that the
Lieutenant was also on his radio. Before deploying the seatkit
I looked around the area in area I would be landing to find out if I wanted to
deploy it or not. Since I was apparently going to land in an open field, I
deployed it.
Upon
contact with the ground, Captain Rash departed the area quickly because he
heard small arms fire and numerous enemy voices around him. During the awkward
ejection he had suffered a severe bruise on his foot and a muscle strain in his
back, as well as first and second degree burns over his face, neck, and lower
arms. He nonetheless wanted to put immediate distance between him and the enemy.
He waded a shallow river, which then put the stream
between him and his backseater. At one time he ran
through a thicket where - in his words - “I could have hidden, but all I could
think of was the Boxer 22 report, where the enemy was all around him and seemed
to know where he was, and shot all through the area he was in.”
The
Captain eventually reached the base of the karst and
found a cave-like indentation where he hid, about 20 feet up the face of it. He
had been evading for approximately fifteen minutes. Pain and exhaustion, at
this point, made him pass out. When he awakened, he heard the navigator talking
on the survival radio to Candlestick 42, a FAC/Flare C-123. Captain Rash also
came up on the radio to let them know he was alive, and to try to give them his
location. He was losing fluid from his burns and shock, and later credited his
two water bottles with giving him the strength and time to survive his coming
ordeal. 94/
Speaking
about the remainder of the first night, he said: Enemy activity was astonishing.
The minute we were down the enemy started bringing in guns all around our
position. They had 37mm, 23mm, ZPU., and small arms.
It was obvious what they were doing and it made me furious. They had set their
pattern in a crossfire, knowing that the SAR effort
would begin in the morning. They fired about 1,200 rounds throughout the
evening to make sure their crossfire pattern would cover the area where the
Jolly Greens or Sandies would be coming in. The first
night was spent to the tempo of many rounds of triple-A going off all around
me.
There
was little doubt in Captain Rash's mind that he was down in “Boxer Country.”
The enemy employed precisely the “flak-trap” tactics they had, using Lt.
Bergeron as bait, three months earlier.
On
20 March, the first light SAR effort began, and from that point on, the F-4
pilot received constant fighter cover, bombing and strafing repeatedly in
attempts to soften up the enemy defenses. It was not easy. Enemy AAA was
extremely heavy, and used the tactic of waiting until the aircraft were pulling
off their runs, and then “backstabbing” as the fighter s passed them. Only four
Jolly Green attempts could be made to rescue the pilot and navigator that day
because of the intense gunfire, three of which were for the navigator because
of his more open position. All failed; the helicopters took numerous hits and
had to leave the area. With evening approaching, it was apparent to Captain
Rash that the SARTF would have to break off further attempts for the night. He
said: 95/
After
the attempt to get the Lieutenant out failed, it began to get dark and I knew
they would soon have to close down the.SAR effort for
that day. As they were talking about closing down, I heard the Lieutenant come
on the air quietly and say he had bad guys all around him, closing in with
small arms and AK-47s. He said they seemed to know right where he was. About
two minutes later he keyed his mike but didn't say anything. I heard bad guy
voices, it sounded like they had their mouths right on the mike. I heard him
say, Wait.,” and then the mike went dead. I then heard
15 to 20 shots fired in the area he was in... That terminated the SAR effort
for that day. The Sandies told me to “hang tough” and
they would be back in the morning. I was at my weakest point right then, both
mentally and physically.
My
final comment to them was, “You don't really believe that, do you?”
I
got no response to that.
The night passed rather quickly and quietly for
Captain Rash, since the enemy already had their AAA zeroed in, and apparently
did not feel they had to change it. He heard dogs barking during the night, and
thought for awhile they were tracking him, but since they did not approach his
position, he figured they were merely dogs from the local villages. The next
morning the SAR effort resumed. They immediately pinpointed his position and
again began the sanitizing, process. The Captain's narrative said: 56/
They started out with the “Papa
whiskies” (Paveways), CBUs,
everything else like they did the previous day. They just pounded the area to
soften it up. They'd found out the previous day that the karat formation where
I was had four or five heavy guns sitting right on top of it. On this day they
brought in the “Papa Whiskies” and knocked those positions out. I think
The first helicopter to come in
overshot Rash and went about 150 meters too far, where it ran into a nest of
machine guns and had to dash out of the area. After two and a half more hours
of softening up, the SAR forces made another try, this time from a different
direction. To the Captain, it was a thing of beauty: 97/
The scene was beautiful
as they came in. The Sandies had a daisy chain set up
to where they were dropping CBUs and strafing right
ahead of the Jolly Green as he came in. They were dropping “Apeman”
(RCA) too. There was a wall of “Apeman”, smoke, dust,
and bomb bursts on either side of the Jolly Green as he came in.
Captain Rash vectored the helicopter
in to the point where the pilot spotted his flare, and from that point on the
rescue went smoothly. He and Lieutenant Bergeron had come back from “Boxer 22
Country” under almost identical circumstances. Both had been shot down over
Each had heard his fellow flyer probably killed. In each
case, the enemy used the survivors as flak bait. On both occasions, the Jolly
Greens had to abort several attempts at rescue because of the intense ground
fire. Both times the SARTF used laser guided bombs to take out the heavy guns,
and both times set up a wall of smoke, bombs, dust, and tear gas on each side
of the helicopter on the final, and successful, rescue attempt. Both crewmen
had spent parts of three days and all of two nights in the valley.