Read Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War Online

Authors: Bruce Henderson

Tags: #Prisoners of war, #Vietnam War, #Prisoners and prisons, #Vietnam War; 1961-1975, #Southeast Asia, #20th Century, #Modern, #Dengler; Dieter, #Asia, #General, #United States, #Prisoners of war - United States, #Laos, #Biography & Autobiography, #Military, #Vietnam War; 1961-1975 - Prisoners and prisons; Laotian, #Biography, #History

Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War (10 page)

BOOK: Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War
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Griffith’s flight of four VA-145 Skyraiders launched after sunrise. Because they were slower, had a longer range, and could stay airborne much longer than jets—which usually required in-flight refueling to stay in the air longer than a couple of hours—Spads were most often first off and last to land, usually after six or seven hours in the air. Today was no exception: the jets were scheduled to launch later, and everything was coordinated so that they all arrived over the targets at the same time. As the ordnance crews did not have time to haul up 250-pound bombs and bigger rockets from the storage magazine and rearm the planes, the Spads were loaded with the same type of ordnance they had carried the day before: rocket pods containing smaller rockets that Griffith considered “practically useless,” and for their four cannons—“very powerful weapons”—20 mm armor-piercing ammo mixed with tracer rounds that burned brightly to light up the trajectory so the shooter could adjust his aim.

When they arrived off the coast of Hon Gai two hours later, Griffith’s flight orbited over the gulf. He raised the incoming flight of jets on his
radio, and talked them in. The plan had been to make a coordinated assault, but the A-4s didn’t wait to join up with the Spads and headed straight for the targets.

Thundering inland with his own flight, Griffith led the first of several rocket-and-cannon runs on torpedo boats outside Hon Gai harbor that were firing at the attacking planes. They left several boats burning.

The sky was dotted with black mushroom-shaped clouds as anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) ringing the harbor joined the torpedo boats in firing at the planes. To Griffith, it “looked like World War II,” and it seemed as if the enemy gunners had been expecting them. Only later would he learn that President Johnson had announced the retaliatory strikes on national television while the aircraft were “airborne and heading for the North Vietnamese coast.” Griffith heard pinging and knew his plane was taking shrapnel hits, but nothing stopped working, so he kept going. One advantage of the Spad was its thick armor plate around the cockpit and engine cowling; another was its self-sealing internal fuel tank—protecting pilot and plane alike. Jets were not so well protected; a piece of metal in the intake or fuel tank could mean disaster for a jet.

Over the din of battle came a distress call from one of the A-4s.


Four Eleven
, I’m hit.” Then: “Can’t control it. I’m ejecting.”

Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done for a downed pilot that day, as there were no helicopters in the area or other provisions for rescue. Anyone going down was on his own, and this was what happened when the A-4 pilot, Lieutenant Everett Alvarez, Jr., twenty-seven, of Santa Clara, California—whose plane was hit on its second sweep across Hon Gai harbor—parachuted safely and was captured. Released from the infamous Hanoi Hilton eight and a half years later, Alvarez was the longest-held American POW of the war.

VA-145 pilot Lieutenant ( j.g.) Richard C. Sather, twenty-six, of Pomona, California, was not so lucky that day. He was in a second wave of attacking Spads, and his plane was the last in his flight to dive on five North Vietnamese torpedo boats near Loc Chao estuary and Hong Me Island. The flight was led by the VA-145 operations officer, Commander Samuel Catterlin, thirty-eight, of Van Nuys, California, who had cautioned
his pilots before they launched that there was “no target out here worth dying for.” The other planes made it, but Sather did not. His Skyraider was seen to “go straight in” and make a huge splash in the water two miles offshore. No parachute was observed and no emergency radio beeper heard. Sather was declared missing, then KIA; his remains were recovered by the North Vietnamese but were not returned to the United States for twenty-one years.

With Al Alvarez the first American POW and Dick Sather the first navy pilot killed over North Vietnam, a new generation’s war had begun.

That same day, President Johnson sent a message to Congress about the Gulf of Tonkin incidents, asking for a joint resolution to give him authorization for the future use of military force in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war by Congress. The resolution passed both houses by a nearly unanimous vote. The incident of August 4, 1964, in the gulf involving the two destroyers was, according to the CIA’s deputy director at that time, Ray Cline, “just what Johnson was looking for.” Marking the start of a rapid escalation, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara immediately announced the reinforcement of U.S. ground, air, and naval forces in Southeast Asia.

 

“Where’s Vietnam?” Dieter Dengler asked over beers with his squadron buddies during happy hour at the Alameda Naval Air Station Officers Club.

“Over by Hong Kong,” someone chimed in.

“Is that where they have good camera deals?” Dieter asked.

“Cameras, stereos, you name it. And the women…”

It was the summer of 1965, and VA-145 had a new CO, Hal Griffith, who relieved Mel Blixt in August. The Swordsmen were training for a December deployment to the western Pacific—WestPac in navy lingo—aboard the carrier
Ranger
(CVA-61).

Dieter had joined VA-145 in February 1965 when the Swordsmen returned from the
Constellation
cruise. Following him to his new assignment had been an officer fitness report covering his four months in the RAG
squadron. “Ensign Dengler has completed training as a Fleet Replacement Pilot. He is an above average aviator. He is eager and enthusiastic about everything he does. He has an excellent military bearing and is well liked by his fellow officers.”

The new pilots in VA-145 may have been excited about camera and stereo deals and exotic ports of call, but they had no idea what was awaiting them in Southeast Asia. Griffith and the senior officers knew they were preparing the squadron for war, although even they weren’t sure what kind of war. They had all heard the popular domino theory: that if one nation fell to communism in Indochina, others would follow. Most of the pilots believed that U.S. intervention was needed in the region to stop the spread of communism. For the new pilots like Dieter, however, it wasn’t just about patriotism, but also an opportunity to be part of something exciting after all their training and preparation. Soon, it would be about staying alive.

What was to be a sustained air war over North Vietnam by carrier-based aircraft began in March 1965. Operation Rolling Thunder, which would continue with few interruptions until November 1968, was intended to halt North Vietnam’s support of communist forces in South Vietnam by destroying its air defenses and industrial infrastructure. After only a few months there were already complaints from navy and air force pilots about the rules of engagement (ROEs) drawn up by politicians to indicate which targets could be hit and which were off-limits. From what Griffith was hearing, the overriding rule seemed to be that American pilots “couldn’t shoot anyone unless they shot first.” What the hell kind of war is that? If the other guy is a good shot, you’re dead. Under such rules, the United States would “still be fighting World War II.”

Of VA-145’s twenty pilots, half were junior officers (ensigns and lieutenants junior grade) with limited flying experience. In the opinion of the squadron’s new CO, the only way to improve stick-and-throttle skills was to spend the requisite hours in the air. During the week, they worked on bombing, gunnery, formation flying, and navigation. Then came the weekends. “I don’t care if you get liquor in Mexico, lobster in Boston, and see your girlfriend in Seattle,” Griffith told his pilots. “I don’t want to see any planes sitting on the flight line on weekends.” For many pilots, including Dieter, this would be the best flying summer of their lives.

The squadron regularly flew to the Marine Corps Air Station at Yuma, Arizona, for weapons training. Because the intense heat radiating off the desert surface could cause a tricky uplift for aircraft, they practiced early in the morning—starting around five o’clock. With “everyone wanting to do better than his comrades,” Dieter was awarded an E for excellence in dive-bombing. Learning that “bombing is quite an art,” the pilots were taught to roll in over the target from 6,500 feet at about 230 miles per hour. They practiced various angles of attack; at thirty degrees they would release their bombs at 2,500 feet, by which point they would have accelerated to nearly 375 miles per hour. A fifty-degree dive resulted in a speed of 400 miles per hour and necessitated a release point of 3,500 feet. During the pullout, they would be pressed into their seats by powerful g forces—the steeper their dive, the faster their speed, the greater the g’s, and the bigger the swoop. The accuracy of aerial bombing was determined by how closely the pilots observed the benchmarks they were taught regarding altitude, prevailing wind, angle of attack, and release point. As the VA-145 pilots were to soon learn, however, practice bombing was not the same as combat operations over the jungles of Southeast Asia, where there were no bull’s-eyes laid out on a flat, desert floor.

By noon, the pilots were usually lying around the pool at the air station’s officers club—such facilities were known worldwide as O clubs—drinking cold beers, getting tanned, and “planning for the evening.” A nighttime or weekend jaunt might include a visit to Winterhaven, Yuma’s neighbor to the north, located on the California side of the Colorado River, or dropping down to “find women and drink beer” in the Mexico border town of San Luis.

On their way back to Alameda from one stay in Yuma, four VA-145 planes diverted for a flyover of the Las Vegas Strip. Dropping down and lowering their flaps to reduce their speed, the formation overflew the high-rise casino hotel where the annual Tailhook Association convention for naval aviators was being held. Pushing open their canopies, Dieter and the other pilots—including Ensign Norm “Lizard” Lessard, twenty-three, of Shrewsbury, Massachusetts—dropped hundreds of “Spads forever” leaflets. This was the slogan of all “Spad drivers,” and one the VA-145 guys announced “loud and clear” whenever they entered a bar en masse, espe
cially when “jet jocks” were around. Dieter, Lizard, and the other Swordsmen knew that jets were the future—and if they stayed in the navy they would one day fly jets—but they were proud of the old-time prop planes they had volunteered to fly, and were unwilling to “give up the good old Spad days easily.”

The primary mission of carrier-based Skyraider squadrons—indeed, of all navy attack (VA) squadrons—was to drop nuclear bombs in the event of World War III. As created in 1960, the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) was an ultrasecret U.S. plan for a massive nuclear strike—with retaliatory as well as preemptive options in the event the United States decided to hit first—on military and urban-industrial targets in the Soviet Union, China, and countries allied with them. An all-out nuclear strike, launched in retaliation to a strike by the Soviet Union, would have delivered 1,700 nuclear weapons by missiles and planes, and a preemptive strike nearly twice that number. VA-145 practiced diligently for its role in such a cataclysmic undertaking, and to a man the Spad pilots understood that they would probably not survive a SIOP mission. Once they deployed aboard a carrier in the Pacific, each pilot would be assigned three targets, known only to him and a few senior officers. Each pilot was responsible for developing a detailed plan for attacking his targets, and having an escape route. The plans were kept under lock and key except when a pilot would be called in to brief one or two senior officers, who would direct any changes necessary to improve the plan. In the event a nuclear strike was ordered by Washington, D.C., a pilot would be handed orders that directed him to hit one of his targets. It was a mission he would fly without a wingman or with other aircraft. Each plane could carry one nuclear weapon on a centerline bomb rack. If all of VA-145’s twelve Spads made it to their targets, they would drop a dozen nuclear bombs, all larger than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II.

One typical nuke practice run began for Dieter with a full day of planning at Alameda, poring over charts to prepare a flight plan he would carry out without navigational aids such as TACAN, as no electronic devices could be used during the real thing, a restriction meant to keep the enemy from homing in on the signals and shooting down the plane. When he took off early the next morning, he headed out over the Pacific. When he was about 75
miles off the coast, he turned around and dropped down to fifty feet to simulate approaching an enemy coastline under the range of radar. His ingress point back to land was Point Reyes on the rugged coast north of San Francisco. When he hit landfall, which navy pilots call feet dry, as opposed to feet wet—being over the ocean—Dieter climbed to only 100 feet off the ground, still under radar range. He would maintain this low altitude for the duration of the five to seven-hour flight, which would end with his dropping a practice bomb on a range near Fallon Naval Air Station in western Nevada. Looking out the cockpit and navigating solely by visual references, Dieter marked his progress on a plotting board that showed rivers, mountains, railroad tracks, bridges, and roads. Once he cleared the coastal hills and forests, he crossed the flat San Joaquin Valley and headed east for the Sierra, avoiding large cities and towns but undoubtedly shaking the rafters of some rural outposts along the way. With so little altitude, Dieter had to be vigilant as he terrain-hopped—climbing to get over each hilltop and mountain, then diving into the next valley. The pilots all thought flying low was great fun and joked about the flights they called sand-blowers being good practice for a career as a crop duster.

Commercial crop dusters, of course, sometimes die because they are flying so low and have such a slim margin for error. That’s what happened to one of the more experienced pilots in VA-145: Lieutenant James Thigpin, a veteran of the
Constellation
cruise who had taken part in the Gulf of Tonkin retaliatory strike at Hon Gai with Hal Griffith. On a sand-blower mission in the spring of 1965, Thigpin was crossing the central valley east of Fresno when he “did something wrong” in switching over from his belly tank to his main fuel tank, causing the engine to stop. Without enough altitude or time to make an emergency landing, he crashed and was killed instantly. The fatal incident involving a popular and capable pilot was “very sobering” for everyone, including Lieutenant ( j.g.) Daniel “Farky” Farkas, twenty-five, of South Bend, Indiana, who joined VA-145 on the day Thigpin crashed. Griffith made the accident a lesson for his pilots: Jim Thigpin was a “damn good pilot,” but he had made a mistake and “you can’t make mistakes when you are flying that low.”

BOOK: Hero Found: The Greatest POW Escape of the Vietnam War
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