PART 2
The "air defense interceptor" force was an unarmed Air Amer*ica Huey helicopter
which was by happenstance on the pad at the time, the pilot and flight mechanic having a
Coke in the ops shack. When holes started appearing in the roof, they ran to their Huey and
got airborne, not quite believing the sight of two biplanes fleeing north. Then the Huey pilot,
no slouch in the balls department either, realized that his Huey was faster than the biplanes!
So he did the only thing a real pilot could do-attack!
The Huey overtook the AN-2's a few miles inside North Viet*nam, unknown to the
AN-2's as their rearward visibility is nil. The Huey flew over the rearmost AN-2 and the
helicopter's down-wash stalled out the upper wing of the AN-2. Suddenly the hapless AN-2 pilot
found himself sinking like a stone! So he pulled the yoke back in his lap and further reduced his
forward speed. Mean*while, the Huey flight mechanic, not to be outdone in the macho contest,
crawled out on the Huey's skid and, one-handed, emptied his AK-47 into the cockpit area of the
AN-2, killing or wounding the pilot and copilot. At this point, the AN-2 went into a flat spin and
crashed into a moutainside, but did not burn.
It should come as no surprise that the Air America pilot and flight mechanic found
themselves in a heap of trouble with the State Department REMF's in Vientiane. (REMF is an
acronym. The first three words are Rear, Echelon, and Mother.) In spite of the striped-pants
cookie-pushers' discomfort at (horrors!) an inter*national incident (or perhaps, partly because of
it) these guys were heroes to everybody in the theatre who didn't wear puce panties and talk with
a lisp. They accomplished a couple of firsts: (1) The first and only combat shootdown of a biplane
by a helicopter, and (2) The first known CIA air-to-air victory. Not bad for a couple of spooks.
Communication with Headquarters was very good in Vietnam, and I learned of this
incident within an hour or so of its happening, although I had no details. But the prospect of
access to a North Vietnamese aircraft of any sort was very attractive to an intell type, so I grabbed
my flyaway kit and headed for Udorn AFB in northern Thailand, where I knew I could get
transport to the crash site from the Air Rescue and Recovery Service (ARRS), the Jolly Green
Giants. Sure enough, the next morning we headed for bad guy land with a flight of three Jolly
Green Giants. The State Department geniuses had decided to cover their ample butts by having the
remains of the AN-2 airlifted down to Vientiane to put on display to an outraged world press, thus
proving that North Vietnam had violated Laotian neutrality by sending armed aircraft against a
peaceful civil airline facility. Yawn. The Air Force went along with it because it provided good
cover for our intell*igence operation. Of course, when State found out that I had gone in without
saying Mother-may-I to them, they were really hot. But by then I had already gotten the goods we
wanted, and what could they do to me? Fire me and send me to Vietnam?
We found the crashed AN-2 a few miles inside NVN. There were already some Meo
mercenaries there led by a CIA field type, whose mission was to bag the crew's bodies and check
to see if they were Russians. They weren't. The jungle and rough terrain precluded landing, so
we went in by jungle penetrator, a cable-mounted weighted affair somewhat like a large plumb
bob. I would have liked to parachute in because a behind-the-lines jump is considered a combat
jump, opposed or not, but the jungle and rough terrain would have made that very dangerous. I
may be a little crazy- all parachutists are- but I'm not stupid. With me went a couple of PS's-
pararescue specialists. These men are elite young tigers who regularly risk their lives to save
downed aircrews. They are universally and deservedly admired and respected. The PS's function
was to rig a sling on the AN-2 so it could be lifted out, and to look after me. I was very glad they
were there.
I was delighted to find the crashed AN-2 had the piece of equipment aboard that I had
hoped to find, a brand new undamaged IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) electronic "black box".
An IFF ~ a coded signal when interrogated by a friendly radar, thus identifying itself as a friendly.
All combat aircraft have an IFF, and I had felt certain that the AN-2 would have been fitted with it
for this mission. We had never before gotten our hands on one in undamaged condition. With this,
we could "reverse engineer" a system which could reliably locate the small, sleek, elusive MiG-21's
before they could sneak up on our strike air*craft. And we did just that, greatly improving the RED
CROWN warning system we had at that time. This capability saved a good many crews and
aircraft during the later years of that miserable war. I am very proud to have had a hand in this
effort.
After rigging the sling on the AN-2, and finishing my intell collection, we tried to lift it
out, but it was too heavy for the Jolly Green helo. (We sent in an Army Chinook heavy-lift
helo the next day to lift it down to Vientiane.) All this activity took several hours. Suddenly
we got a call from the Jollys that an RS57 had been shot down somewhere north and had
strung bailed-out crew members along a twenty mile path. An all-out rescue effort was
required and our helicopters were being pulled off our mission immediately, without even time
to pick us up. They would be back to get us when they could. Suddenly, what had been a
relatively low risk in-and-out mission took on a whole different aspect. I knew from good
intell that there were NVN Army elements in the vicinity, and they would no doubt be
directed to find and destroy the crashed AN-2. All the stooging around with noisy helicopters
we had done that morning, plus voluminous radio comms, could not have failed to alert them.
We were four Ameri*cans, who knew not ten words of Umong between us, and about a
dozen Meo mercenaries, none of whom spoke English. Our arms consisted of three -38
revolvers, my Colt 1911 .45 automatic, and the Meos' ragtag lot of Ml's, Ml4's, and '03
Springfields. We had very little ammo, no water, no rations, no flares or smoke grenades, not
even a compass. We did have short range ground-to-air radios, and a promise to return for us, but
who knew when that would be. Not a good situation.
After a hasty conference, we decided to remain at the crash site until an hour or so before
dark, and then move off and find a defensible place to spend the night, if necessary. So we
waited. Late that afternoon, we heard a helicopter and got a call that the big rescue operation was
completed, and we should saddle up for extraction. I can't begin to describe how relieved we were
to see that big beautiful Freedom Bird flying toward us. Our Freedom Bird picked us up with no
problem, and we were back at Udorn in time for Happy Hour. No ARRS crewman ever bought his
own drink at any club in 'Nam. I can assure you none did that night.
As a postscript, Lima Site 85 was overrun by ground troops about a month after the
bombing attempt, and all US personnel were killed or captured. The comm guys who heard their
last mess*ages said it was a pitiful situation as the site team reported the attackers' progress at
getting at them in their cave bunker. The official version of what happened is that North
Vietnamese troops climbed the sheer sides of the mountain with ropes and pitons to attack the
site. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now. The attack had all the earmarks of a
Spetsnaz operation, probably insertion by a HALO parachute team, but un*less the Russians admit
it we will probably never know.
Of interest, the History Channel in their Missions of CIA series, did a one hour
documentary on the Lima Site 85 incident which I saw a few months ago. It showed footage of
the AN-2 in Vientiane, and discussed the ground assault (the "official" version). All in all, they did a
pretty good job with it, espec*ially considering that it was over thirty years ago. They got some
things wrong, and some they never knew about, but they weren't there at the time. I was.