The Generals (39 page)

“We came to quell your mutiny.”

“What mutiny?”

“You mean you don’t have a mutiny? Shit, another wild goose chase.”

Eventually, the chiefs were all ushered out of their quarters and the passageways were crowded with muscular men—very few of whom were out of their twenties—in various stages of undress. The exhaust fans could not dispel all the steam from fifty shower heads running at once; the compartment became misty.

They found the Chief Petty Officers’ Mess.

“Jesus, I’m in the wrong service. Do you believe this chow?”

The menu was tomato juice, chicken noodle soup, steak to order, french-fried potatoes, stewed tomatoes, string beans, and cherry cobbler.

The milk was reconstituted.

“Hey, Colonel, what are you doing down here in steerage with the peasants?”

“Colonel Felter said I wasn’t allowed to eat with the Naval gentlemen.”

“How’s it going, Colonel?”

“Right on the dot so far.”

“Something will go wrong.”

(Three)

The helicopters crossed over the coast in a double V formation, two V’s of three Chinooks. The Jolly Green Giant brought up the rear. But as they passed the coast, it picked up speed until it was flying immediately beneath the first of the Chinook V’s.

The pilot of the first Chinook, at a nod from Colonel Lowell, pressed his microphone switch three times. He didn’t speak, but the activated transmitter caused a pop in the earphones of every pilot and copilot. The V formations immediately changed shape. The Chinook in front pulled ahead, and the Chinook just behind it closed on its tail. The remaining six Chinooks formed a diagonal line, one immediately behind and slightly above the other. The Jolly Green Giant picked up speed and took up a position behind the two Chinooks in the lead.

They were no more than 150 feet off the ground now, flying over rice paddies and thatch-roofed villages but below a line of hills (and thus below any known radar sites).

The prison compound appeared ahead around a curve. It was possible to see barbed wire suspended from concrete poles, and two guardhouses. Inside the compound was a six-sided building.

Colonel Lowell touched the microphone switch hanging from the headset microphone assembly on his head.

“Fire,” he said.

From four-foot-by-three-foot windows on each side of the lead Chinooks, what looked to be four ribbons of fire reached out to the ground. Each came from a six-barrel, electrically driven version of the Gatling gun. From each gun 168-grain tracer bullets—one hundred of them per second, six thousand rounds per minute—streaked to the ground at three thousand feet per second.

First the radio shack and then the two guard towers disappeared. They were literally disintegrated by thousands of bullets.

The Jolly Green Giant flared over the building, came to a midair hover, and then crashed straight down.

“He’s down, Colonel,” the Chinook pilot, Major William B. Franklin, reported matter-of-factly.

“Get us over the building, Bill,” Lowell ordered.

The Chinook made a sharp 180-degree turn and flew back over the building, hovering thirty feet over the roof of the building in the center of the compound. Nylon ropes snaked out the back of the Chinook. Then Chief Warrant Officer Stefan Wojinski hooked his D ring to the other rope and jumped after him.

They both landed heavily, lost their balance, and fell to their knees. Lowell’s “Green Beret” version of the M-16 (the M-16A3 had a shorter barrel and a folding stock, and was designed for use as a hand-held machine pistol rather than as a shoulder weapon) fell from his hands.

A North Vietnamese soldier, his Frank Buck–style pith helmet cockeyed on his head, suddenly appeared and sprayed the roof with his AK-47.

Lowell dived for the rooftop, bile in his mouth, reaching for the Luger at his side. The M-16A3 was out of reach. And if the NKA had taken Ski out with his first burst—which seemed likely—and unless he could get the Luger in action—which seemed unlikely—he was going to get it right here.

There was a single shot, sounding somewhat like a muffled shotgun, and a 70-mm grenade crossed the roof, struck the North Vietnamese soldier in the chest, then exploded.

The NKA soldier, his torso an ugly, bloody mess, fell backward onto the roof.

“Shit!” Wojinkski said, angrily. “That sonofabitch wasn’t supposed to be there.”

He broke his grenade launcher, and the fired 70-mm case flew out. He reloaded.

Wojinski looked down at Lowell.

“You all right, Duke?” he asked, concern in his voice.

“I’m all right,” Lowell said. “Thanks, Ski.”

“You better pick up your weapon,” Wojinski said, matter-of-factly.

Lowell found the M-16A3, fired a short burst to see that it was still working, and then stood up. The remaining Chinooks were coming in to land. He walked to the inner side of the roof and looked down into the courtyard and saw Colonel Tex Williams climbing out of the Green Giant.

So far, so good.

(Four)

According to the intelligence they had—which was admittedly sketchy at best—the command post of the Dak Tae prison compound was a frame building in the center of the six-sided building’s courtyard. It housed whatever administrative offices were required. The office of the commanding officer was supposedly on the second floor, and guard rooms and what were called “classrooms” were on the first.

Although the prison (formerly a mental institution) was itself only two stories high, it had been built by the French, and was taller than the interior building, which had been built later by the Vietnamese. Moreover, the interior building was flat-roofed. It had thus been possible for the Vietnamese to stretch a canvas awning from the rain gutter line of the exterior prison over the administrative building in the center. It was not sure whether this was to provide concealment, or shade. The answer was probably both.

The problem had been how to get rid of the damn thing. Gatling guns could have torn it to pieces in less than a minute. But it was dangerously close to the masonry cells of the prisoners, whose windows opened onto the courtyard. The bullets consequently would have ricocheted around the courtyard until they entered the open, barred windows of the cells. Once inside, they would have ricocheted around the cell walls.

Lowell, who was familiar with the effects of high-speed projecta ricocheting around the interior of a tank, had flatly ruled out the use of the Gatling guns. Putting mortar shells or even a two-hundred-pound aerial bomb through the canvas suited him no better.

The solution finally reached was to drop a helicopter onto the canvas. From a height of twenty feet, a helicopter of sufficient weight would break right through the canvas, the support structure (if there was any), and the roof of any frame building below these.

The available rotary-wing aircraft had been individually considered, and all but one was rejected: The Bell Huey was too small. The Chinook, which had dual rotors, was rejected because of its rotor sweep; it would not fit well into the available space. The Sikorsky Sky-Crane had at first seemed a likely choice. It would be unnecessary to expand the machine if a weight—carried as a sling load—could be dropped through the canvas. But the final choice had been the Sikorsky Jolly Green Giant. It could be loaded internally to a greater weight than the Sky-Crane could drop. Its mass was immediately beneath the single rotor head, and the rotor sweep fit neatly into the available space.

Two Jolly Greens were requisitioned. One had been expended during the dress rehearsal. The second expenditure had been accomplished just now.

As the two Chinooks with the Gatling guns circled back to drop people by rope onto the roof of the prison proper, two more Chinooks came in behind them, and hovered two feet off the ground on both sides of the entrance to the prison building.

Captain Geoffrey Craig, with a Remington Model 870 12-bore shotgun in his hands, was first out the rear door.

He ran for the prison entrance with thirty Green Berets jumping out and running after him.

As soon as the men were out, the Chinooks took off and moved several hundred yards away, behind a copse of trees.

Geoff Craig knew that one of two things was going to happen at the entrance. Either the doors would be locked—in which case three Special Forces men were each equipped with an adhesive-backed satchel charge and five-second fuse. Any of these would be sufficient to blow the double doors inward.

Or else Vietnamese troops inside would rush out to do battle.

To take care of that contingency, there were two Berets with M-70 grenade launchers and two more with 7.65-mm machine guns, 120-round belts of ammunition draped around their shoulders.

It didn’t happen that way of course.

The left of the double doors opened, and half a dozen North Vietnamese soldiers rushed out. Then somebody inside concluded that discretion was the best part of valor, and hurriedly closed the door.

Geoff fired the shotgun as fast as he could at the soldiers outside. The shotgun was loaded with XX shotshells, each shell containing twelve lead pellets about the size and weight of the bullet in a .32 ACP pistol bullet.

The hair at the base of his neck curled as the Green Berets fired around him, the hissing crack of 5.56-mm M-16 rounds; the sharper, deeper crack of 7.62 NATO rounds; and the sort of a whistling thump of the 70-mm grenade throwers.

The North Vietnamese went down quickly, but not before they had taken out three Green Berets.

Geoff dug in the pockets of his ripstop camouflage nylons for more shells. At the same time he glanced at the downed Berets. Experience told him they were dead. Then his eye caught a fired shotshell on the ground to his left. The way it had landed he could read “
DEER & BEAR LOAD
” in gold letters. As he loaded the last shotshell, he looked at the building, and then up at the roofline.

Craig Lowell, carrying a cut-down M-16 barrel up in the crook of his elbow, was looking down at them.

Geoff returned his attention to what was going on in front of him.

In very much the same position a quail hunter assumes when his dogs have gone on a point, two of the Berets carrying grenade launchers walked up to him, put the stocks to their shoulders, and carefully aimed the launchers at the doors. There was a muted, shotgun-like noise, and a half moment later, the sound of the 70-mm grenades going off.

The left door fell inward.

There followed sustained bursts from two M-60 machine guns, to sweep the corridor beyond. The Berets reloaded the grenade launchers as they walked, unhurriedly, to the door. Then they fired another round into the corridor.

Geoff hoped that Tex Williams would not be in the line of fire. When the Berets with machine guns trotted to the door, and peeked inside, Geoff ran after them.

The corridor inside held fifteen dead North Vietnamese. Growing puddles of blood were on the stone floor. At the far end of the corridor was another set of double doors opening onto the interior courtyard.

Though they had been blown off their hinges by the 70-mm grenades, they were not down. And then one of the doors moved.

The machine-gunners raised their weapon muzzles.

“Hold fire!” Geoff shouted.

When they looked at him curiously, he explained, “It may be Colonel Williams.”

They nodded, but one of them put his machine-gun to his shoulder like a rifle and trained it on the door.

It was Williams. He had a cut on his face, and the right side of his gray flight suit was torn open, but otherwise he seemed all right. He ran down the corridor to join them. In his hand he held a small Smith & Wesson .38 Special revolver (standard Air Force issue for flight crews).

“There’s a couple of men down outside,” Geoff said. “If you want a weapon.”

Williams went after it.

There was no excess firing—which had been about the last point Craig Lowell had touched on in his briefing on the carrier: “I’m not asking for noble heroics,” he had said. “But keep in mind what a fucking shame it would be for one of those poor bastards to be taken down by an American bullet.”

It had apparently got to the men.

“The Torches”—Berets carrying satchel charges in their hands, and a bagful of thermite grenades in back packs—came through the corridor and began to distribute the thermite grenades around on the ruins of the frame building and under the Jolly Green (which had come to rest slightly nose down).

After “preparing the Jolly for demolition,” the Berets split themselves into two teams and started down the side corridors. The team on the left encountered the North Vietnamese who had retreated into the building, and there was a sudden vicious exchange of gunfire and the crump of the grenade launchers.

Aside from this they met little resistance. Not very much had been expected. The weaponry immediately available to the Vietnamese had been the machine guns in the towers destroyed by the Gatling guns and the small arms of the guards in the headquarters building into which Tex had crashed the Jolly Green Giant.

What resistance they expected to encounter was going to arrive in about five minutes from the guards’ barracks (again French built) several hundred yards from the prison compound itself.

The idea had been debated—and rejected—of having Gatling gun–armed Chinooks assault the barracks. Since the Gatlings were not very effective against stone buildings, the Vietnamese attempting to reinforce the prison would be met on the ground by Force II, the 115 officers and men under Colonel MacMillan, who were now still airborne.

Those four Chinooks would land on open areas convenient to the prison compound. Since these landing areas looked entirely too inviting, it had to be presumed they were either mined with conventional mines (the kind that would detonate under weight) or with emplaced mines (which could be detonated on command from—it was hoped—the headquarters destroyed by Tex’s Jolly Green).

Lowell was disappointed when the destruction of the guard towers and the radio shack had not resulted in a second explosion of the mines that were likely placed in the landing fields.