T-Tail-Tall-Tail:
The Saigon Airlift
Dan Flak
In terms of cargo airlifted, it was the greatest
airlift effort in the history
of mankind.
In terms of number of sorties flown, it was the
greatest airlift effort since
the Berlin Airlift.
In terms of number of people evacuated, it was the
greatest evacuation effort
since the miracle of Dunkirk.
No, I do not substantiate these claims. However,
from my vantage point in
history, and from my vantage point within the
airlift effort itself, it
certainly seemed so.
Deployments started as early as March, and it wasn't
over until May.
Nearly every C-5, C-141, and C-130 in the Air Force
inventory was involved in
the effort at one point or another.
My personal involvement began with a telephone call
in the middle of a March
night. Throwing together enough laundry for a trip
to who knows where and for
who knows how long had already gotten routine by
this time. Still, I sensed
that there would be something different about this
trip.
Our initial deployment was to Kadena AB, Okinawa.
That wasn't the normal
staging area for the C-141's flying the airlift, but
it was as close as we
could get to overcrowded Clark (Philippines) and
Anderson (Guam) Air Bases. The
standard joke was that these islands were in danger
of sinking under the sheer
weight of the aircraft sitting on the ramps at the
airfields. Surprisingly,
room was found later.
Our crew spent 2 days in Kadena before departing for
Saigon. That was the last
time for the next two months we were to see that
much free time all in one
piece.
Since we didn't depart from one of the "normal"
staging areas, we were ill
provisioned. We had no IRCM (Infra Red Counter
Measures) equipment (special
flares and mounting racks), and no intelligence
briefing. We didn't even have
the informal feedback from other crews that had been
there. We were going in
cold.
Passing overhead Clark inbound, I filed our flight
plan back out with a friend
of mine at the command post. Although he recognized
my voice and tried to sound
cheerful, I could hear the strain in his voice. He
had gone through this same
routine with countless aircraft before during an
endless succession of 16 hour
shifts. He probably still has the routing memorized.
We picked up 180 passengers on our first trip.
Looking back into the cargo
compartment, all I could see was a sea of heads. Our
loadmasters were hard
pressed to jerry rig safety measures. Every so
often, across the width of the
aircraft were stretched tiedown straps to act as
handholds to keep our human
cargo from shifting too much in the event of a
mishap. One hundred eighty
people sat squatting on a cold metal floor.
Subsequent missions were furnished
with blankets, carpeting, cardboard, drop cloths,
and anything else that could
be used for insulation. All these materials were
scrounged by the aircrews
themselves, or donated by the residents of Clark and
Guam Air Bases1.
On subsequent missions (staged out of Clark or
Anderson) we also were furnished
with small arms, IRCM kits and better information.
At least we were shown a map
indicating where the bad guys were. Going in at
night, we could see how
accurate the intelligence was. There was a ring of
fire in the form of
artillery exchanges around Saigon. Each night, it
drew a little closer.
Aside from Tan Son Nhut AB (Saigon - ICAO identifier
VVVS), the only other
airfield in friendly hands was Bien Hoa (North and
East of Saigon about 30
miles). It was attacked several times by air and
ground forces during the
airlift, captured and regained once.
Aside from that, we had other concerns. The North
Vietnamese had supplemented
their Air Force with VNAF assets captured at Cam
Rahn Bay, Da Nang, and a few
other places. They now had A-37's, F-4's and F-5's
to add to their MIG-17 and
MIG-21 collection. They also managed to position a
37 mm AAA gun within an
effective range of one mile of VVVS. That makes
flying a tight pattern a good
idea! Add to this any freelance Victor Charlie with
an SA-7, and you begin to
wonder what the hell you're doing there.
We kept telling ourselves that the North Vietnamese
would not want to do
anything to give the Americans an excuse to
intervene. We kept telling
ourselves, that we weren't going to do anything to
provoke them to do anything
to give us an excuse to intervene. Or so we hoped.
To counter the first threat, we had MIG CAP. One of
our loadmasters nearly shot
off a flare at an F-5 which was doing a vertical
climb from directly beneath
us. During the day, the sky was nearly overcast with
contrails. I don't know
what they had up there.
To counter the latter two threats, we had to rely on
our own resources.
Approach was to be made up the delta above 16,000
ft. Then, from a point
directly overhead, one 360 degree turn staying
within 1 mile of the airport was
to be executed. This maneuver is no sweat in a
C-130. It takes a lot of skill
in a C-141. However, doing the "Saigon Split-S" in a
C-5 requires flying
finesse that even a Thunderbird Pilot would envy.
After several trips, we could rollout over the
overrun, intercept the glide
slope, flare, and touchdown all at the same time. It
became second nature. You
could spot the "rookies"- they were the ones who
landed halfway down the
runway. After that it was taxi to parking, offload
our cargo and pick up
passengers.
I can vividly remember being slumped over the yoke,
absent-mindedly listening
the occasional "whump" of artillery in the distance,
and staring across the
cockpit at my aircraft commander. He was staring
back at me. We both had the
same look on our faces; "What the hell are we doing
here, we could get killed".
However, both of us were too tired to worry about
it. As one night went on into
another, the "whumps" gradually became a thunder,
and more often, and the
thunder was accompanied by visible lightening
flashes. Even the sky was aflame
with flares.
If things got hot, we were told to climb as rapidly
as possible to 16000 ft or
more, and di-di-mao out the delta. Working on my
Tactical Air Command (TAC)
experience, I had my aircraft commander convinced of
another course of action.
He was willing to trust the radar altimeter. Our
plan was to take the
Starlifter out on the deck changing heading and
altitude every couple of
seconds at 350 knots (max speed for the C-141). If
we had to do it, we hoped we
had to do it at night in the weather.
I also instigated another new procedure. (It wasn't
new to me - I was "born and
raised" in TAC). As soon as we broke ground, we went
from "Christmas Tree" to
blackout. Every light (including cabin illumination)
went to the off position.
We were the first ones to do this. On the next
night, about half the aircraft
did it. By the third night, all aircraft would
rotate and disappear. Of course
there were incoming aircraft, and they too, were
blacked out. So much for "see
and avoid". At least departing aircrews knew where
arrivals should be
"spiraling down". None of this was done by any
conscious effort on the part of
command post, ATC, or even verbal agreements among
crews.
There were brighter and more interesting moments.
The constant chatter of
aircrews on the unauthorized frequency 123.45 gave
us more information than
command post ever could. We ran into one crew toting
around their winter flying
gear. It seems they were pulled off an exercise in
Germany. There was also the
time I was given a clearance by the NVA! It read
almost like the real thing,
but had some "unexpected" differences. The tip off
was that this guy's English
was too good. It wasn't one of the same voices I had
gotten used to on previous
visits. I ignored it, and called for and got a
"real" clearance later. To think
that they were within UHF range of the ramp!
For the duration of the airlift, it was fly 16+
hours per day with 12 hours off
(that's 12 hours between touchdown and wheels up.
Considering post and pre
mission requirements, that usually worked out to
less than 8 hours sleep per
night).
The crash of the C-5 took the "Fat Alberts" out of
the action early, however,
it didn't slacken the effort appreciably. There was
a continuous flow of C-141
and C-130 aircraft in and out of the airport.
These planes were tended to in a highly efficient
matter by the ground crews
who unloaded cargo, performed miracles in
maintenance, and shuttled passengers
to keep as few aircraft on the ground, for as little
time as possible. Many of
these men made it out on the last flights out.
Several were pulled from the US
Embassy roof as NVA tanks were entering the city.
Back home, there were two C-141s on the ramp at
Norton AFB (San Bernardino,
CA.). Both were so stripped of parts, it looked like
some huge mechanical
vulture had picked them clean. On the line, we were
flying anything that could
fly. Aircrew and Safety Officer alike turned their
heads.
Back home, the "Honorable" Senator Edward Kennedy
(Mass - D) was thoroughly
misrepresenting the airlift effort to all of
America. The news media gave him
ample newspaper space (and air time as well, I
imagine) to explain how the Air
Force wasn't doing enough, and what it was doing was
slipshod. I hold few
grudges, and I may burn in hell because of it. My
only consolation is that the
"Honorable" Senator will precede me.
Back at home, freedom of the press was milking the
airlift for all the
sensationalism it could muster. Picture a house with
12 Air Force wives playing
bridge while their husbands are "over there". The
TV, (ABC "news"), announces;
"We interrupt this program for a special news
bulletin. An American cargo plane
has been blown up in Saigon. Details at 11".
One by one, the wives call the squadron to find out
if there's any information.
One by one, the wives find out that their husbands
are in Clark or Guam. All
except one. She's 5 months pregnant, 24 years old,
with a two-year-old child.
She's a continent away from the nearest family. The
squadron can't find her
husband. She knows that what the Captain really
means is her husband is "in
country".
Her husband wasn't really "in country". I was
airborne, and on my way to Guam
when the event happened. As good as the command and
control of the operation
was, there was still several hours lag in getting
the information stateside.
The "details", known to the press all along, was
that a C-130 was indeed hit by
a motor round on the ramp. It was empty. There were
no human casualties.
Scratch one C-130 from the Air Force inventory. It
was merely an accounting
problem, not a cause to notify next of kin. However,
ABC had products to sell,
and if a little additional human anguish could
accomplish that, so be it!
The days became no more than numbers marching across
a calendar. The nights
showed the battle being slowly lost as the ring of
fire and steel tightened
like a noose around the neck of the Vietnamese
capitol. As the battle drew
closer, our passenger count escalated.
Initially, the "standard load" was a 180 people.
That soon gave way to 200,
210, or whatever could be squeezed in. It was quite
literally "standing room
only" as people sat in one another's laps to make
room for the twoand a half to
four and a half hour flight to freedom.
Then one morning we got up. We reported to the
command post. They told us we
were going to Midway. We asked them what happened to
Saigon; they told us it
wasn't there anymore. Ten years (more or less) after
the war started, the
flying, at least, was over.
Our crew spent several weeks resettling the
population to staging areas on
Guam, Clark, Midway and Wake. Our final leg involved
heading into Midway to
pick up a group of infant orphans. We were coming in
from the West. A C-5 was
arriving from the East. Our cargo was people. His
cargo was a Garbage Truck,
and six pallets of toilet paper (talk about big time
trash hauling). We picked
up our new passengers and shuttled them to McChord
AFB, WA (Which, ironically,
is a mile or two from where I lived for 13 years
after separating from the Air
Force. I wonder how many of the Vietnamese students
in my sons' High School
were former passengers.)
Finally, nearly 8 weeks after kissing the wife
goodbye, we were wheels down on
final approach for Norton.
A lot has to be said for the spouses and dependents
at Clark Air Base,
Philippines and Anderson Air Base, Guam. They
provided much of the "humaneness"
of this humanitarian effort. In addition to coming
up with the blankets and
"whatnot", they also did a lot of volunteer work
providing a variety of
services from serving food in field kitchens to
providing medical care.
I'm also proud of my adoptive hometown, Tacoma, WA.
for welcoming many of these
people with open arms. You don't have to wear a
uniform to be a hero.
Email Dan at: this address.