Tet

The Vietnamese annually celebrated Tet, the lunar new year. Traditionally they would set off fireworks and celebrate with parties of eating and drinking. Vietnamese soldiers tended to shoot all their ammunition into the air if they had no fireworks. The VC and NVA (North Vietnamese Army) had chosen this celebration in late January 1968 to open their well-planned offensives against virtually all US and Vietnamese installations in the country, and Camp Holloway was not exempted. The many out-of-ammunition Vietnamese troops at their bases made this easy.

On the night of January 28, 1968 a huge explosion racked Camp Holloway when Viet Cong sappers infiltrated onto the base and detonated explosives in the ammunition dumps. We had been warned to expect “something” and something really happened. Although there had been sporadic mortar and rocket attacks throughout the three months I had been there, this major attack set things into motion. Before the dust settled from the giant explosions, we were running to our bunkers for protection from whatever was to come next. The Tet Offensive, as the next few months were called, caused the well known political reverberations in the States because high ranking military and civilian officials had been saying the war had been going well.

There was a standing procedure that in case the perimeter of the airfield was breached by the enemy, a green star cluster (a flare, like a skyrocket) would be fired and anyone moving around outside was subject to being shot. One night a firefight between our airfield security forces and the bad guys erupted outside the main gate, and before we could reach our underground bunkers a green star cluster was fired. A group of us jumped into the trash dump outside the hooches, a concrete walled area about fifteen feet square and two feet high. There I was again, defending myself against a ground attack. This time, however, I had a steel helmet, flak jacket, and two hundred rounds of ammo for my weapon and was in the company of a dozen or so other scared pilots similarly equipped and armed.

Nothing moved for us to shoot at over the next few hours, and close to daylight an Air Force “Spooky” gunship, an AC-47, a twin-engine transport airplane modified with three mini-guns that could fire up to 6,000 rounds per minute each, circled above the action at the main gate and put an end to the attack.

This early morning picture shows the Holloway control tower lit up by
 parachute flares dropped by an Air Force AC-47 "Spooky" gunship as it is
 circling and firing at NVA and VC troops attacking the main gate of the
airfield. The picture is blurry because it is a time exposure and I'm holding
the camera in my hands.

 The next morning we were in the air early. There were reports of NVA troops holed up in a particular group of buildings on the outskirts of Holloway called “Sin City”. These hovels were painted garish colors (red, green, yellow, etc.) and were allegedly the business offices of prostitutes and drug dealers. This time we were able to be the offensive force protecting the airfield since the attack helicopter companies were off flying in support of US and Vietnamese troops engaged with the enemy.

 Each aircraft would take off loaded with high explosive rockets and climb to about 1500 feet altitude. Stan Irvin was orbiting in his airplane above the group of Bird Dogs that were flying basically in an elongated traffic pattern around the airfield. Acting as an aerial air traffic controller, he directed the aircraft to whichever house he observed ground fire coming from (“One Four, hit the red house between the two yellows”). We would expend our rockets, continue in the pattern to land, re-arm and take off again until that threat was eliminated.

(Just a quick note on our protection. Beginning with Tet we began to receive ground fire on a regular basis. Not only were our Bird Dogs unarmed until we could add modifications, they were also un-armored. Helicopter pilots sat in armored seats and their crewmembers wore armored vests, logically because they would often be subjected to heavy ground fire dropping off and picking up troops. We, like soldiers on the ground, only had flak vests, made of tightly woven nylon designed for upper torso protection from shrapnel. We also wore flight helmets, the protective values of which were doubtful.  Once again, reacting to situations we wanted to change, we scrounged sections of helicopter pilots’ armor plated seats and placed them under our canvas seats. The back-pack-style parachutes carried in the airplanes made sitting more comfortable and might have slowed down bullets. However, because of the altitudes we flew there were no times when we could have used them for their intended purpose.)

Pleiku City didn’t suffer the devastating attacks that major cities in Vietnam did (Saigon, Da Nang, etc.) but the military installations around Pleiku, such as Camp Holloway, Pleiku Air Force Base, and the Fourth Infantry Division base camp at Dragon Mountain got hit often. Mortar and rocket attacks occurred each night over the next few weeks.  Needless to say we headed for the underground bunkers early each night until the threats of attacks were over. We got hammered a couple of times and the following pictures show the results of some of those attacks. Fortunately no Headhunter was injured or killed in any rocket or mortar attack while I was there.

The attack started with mortars falling on the airfield. One round caused this
crater in the road while we were safely inside an adjacent sandbag-protected
bunker. No one was hurt but the damaged jeeps and trailer (grill blown off,
 flattened tires and holes in the windshields) can be seen.

One of the hooches took a direct hit from a mortar round when the occupants
were in a bunker.

This is the interior of the hooch hit by the mortar round. Note the hole in the roof
and shrapnel holes that riddle the ceiling and walls. The large slash in the wall on
the right was caused by the fuse on the nose of the round. I forget who lived in
the room but he was extremely upset - his new stereo system was the only casualty.

Holloway wasn't the only Headhunter location attacked. The Second Platoon
operations and adjacent ammo storage rooms at the airfield at Kontum also took
direct mortar round hits.