Postcard, February 17, 1971
Many areas of Vietnam were controlled by the Viet Cong, so trucks were
unable to pass safely, even in convoys.
Katum was pretty
remote--about 4 miles from Cambodia.
The VC operated freely back and forth across the border bringing
weapons large and small to shoot at big targets like C-130's. To
make the VC easier to spot, the USAF defoliated the nearby jungle with
Agent Orange--note the
dead trees just beyond the runway.
A couple of years earlier a C-130 was hit on departure, and crash landed at a nearby airfield.
Pat Hatch's story is hair-raising.
Katum's runway was shorter than
most--
3000' of red dirt treated with
Peneprime to keep the dust
down. The soil there is called laterite and it is red because of
the high concentration of iron.
Combat Essential, February 21, 1971
Army helicopters
operating out of there needed fuel, so we brought it to them in
"bladder birds". Occasionally we
brought 2' diameter round
bladders called "elephant balls", but usually we carried the fuel in
two black
lozenge-shaped bladders, each about 18' long.
The airplane's landing weight determined the length of its landing roll,
which was quite limited at small fields like Katum. Based on the field length we
calculated our maximum rollout, and from that we determined
how many tons of fuel we could bring in.
"Normal" short field landing criteria are different from "combat
essential" landing criteria. If your mission was high priority
(combat essential), thinner safety margins were acceptable.
Max gross weight for normal short field landings was calculated
assuming 2 props in reverse and 2 in ground idle. For combat
essential missions we
calculated the landing rollout assuming all 4 in reverse. This
increased the possible gross
weight (and the possibility of going off the far end of the runway if
something went wrong).
My
nav comes on a little strong sometimes (his nickname is King
Kong). He would make a good AC--he is sharp but occasionally I
have to remind him that he's the navigator and I'm the AC.
The frag order was incorrect when we were briefed for the bladder
mission and the duty officer and I were straightening out our
itinerary. Meanwhile KK noticed
that ours was the only Katum mission that was not classified as combat
essential. So he had the duty officer check with Hilda and get it
changed to CE so we could carry in more fuel in our bladders.
Yes, the sortie was intended to be combat essential, but the navigator
cannot set the aircraft's landing weight and rollout for short
fields.
So
KK and I had a little
talk about who makes those decisions. I think we understand each
other a little better now.
Friendly Fire, February 22, 1971
Our
last sortie to Katum (in the fish hook area by the Cambodian border)
turned out to be kind of interesting. On the first two sorties
John
Roohms was giving another pilot an initial SEA check. Stace rode
along on both to log some time to put him closer to upgrading from
copilot to AC. I rode out on the first shuttle just to scope out
the situation. After sitting out the second one I flew the third
mission.
We dealt with friendly fire and hostile fire daily. As we
approached the field on
that third flight we monitored the radio frequency for
"Tailpipe Alpha".
Tailpipe
is
the
call
sign for the combat
control team-- the first USAF guys into a remote airfield like
Katum. They coordinate airlift operations at the field, act as
control tower where there is no tower, and aerial port where there is
no aerial port.
Tailpipe Alpha reported
that there were incoming rounds but no damage yet.
So we orbited nearby and talked with Alpha and Hilda (call sign for the
airlift control center at Tan Son Nhut). They told us that it was
all clear and the runway was OK. Meanwhile the good guys at
several fire support bases nearby had cranked up their artillery and
were
shooting back.
One FSB was located at the approach end of the
runway so the navigator talked with them on their FM frequency and got
them to hold their fire so we could land. I was on
short final approach
when I saw puffs of white smoke coming up from the FSB! Somebody
down there hadn't gotten the word and we were
about to fly into their fire! I dodged right and broke off the
approach, then orbited nearby while the
nav talked with them yet again. Once they really halted their
fire we landed uneventfully and firmly. We pumped out our fuel, flew on
to Binh
Thuy, then back to Tan Son Nhut.
