A tale worth telling

I have a great deal of respect for both these men and wanted to be able to share it. These are the stories that should not be lost to time, or kept by the writer only to be found by his children after his passing. To meet them you'd never think that they took part in such an event, but you never know what a man will do until he is asked. Lew is soft spoken and easy going. He is ready to help out any way he can, always.
Mark, I don't know as well. I only worked with him for a brief period before he was moved to one of our other sites. He comes across more as a jet jock, very sure of his abilities. I would say head strong. His motto at work, anytime, anywhere. He'll do what he can and then some. At home he is a business owner. This year he is being faced with having to lay off employees for the first time since he's had his company, he is devastated that he has to even consider this action.
This is my small part, I feel of preserving history for future generations. I know there are hundreds of stories just like this. Men you would never know if they hadn't told you. Write their stories, share them.
I did not write this piece however I have permission from the writer to post it here.


Heaven’s Swing
By
Lew Jennings


It was late afternoon when I received word to report to the Operations bunker. I was resting on my bunk in a hooch I shared with Mike Talton. I had been up since 4 a.m. as I had already flown the first-light reconnaissance mission and had returned earlier in the day. I was a 23 year-old Army Chief Warrant Officer and Cobra helicopter gunship pilot in A Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry, 101st Airborne Division, Camp Eagle, Vietnam.

It was 26 November 1969 and by now I had flown over 500 combat missions during my tour in Vietnam.  Only a couple more months, a few hundred more missions and I would get to go home. Having flown the first light reconnaissance, I was supposed to have the rest of the day off. Something bad must have happened.

I quickly donned my gear pulling a heavy bullet-proof vest we called a ‘chicken plate’ down over my head and jungle fatigue shirt and cinched the body armor over my chest with Velcro straps. Next was a survival vest containing some signal flares, signal mirror, first aid kit, strobe light, flashlight and a few survival items like matches and fishing line in case we got shot down or crashed. Then secured my trusty .38 caliber pistol; a revolver that wasn’t good for much of anything except a false sense of security.  I carried it in a ‘John Wayne’ western style holster and belt. Before I would get in the aircraft, I would swivel the belt around so that the holster and pistol covered my crotch giving some ‘additional’ protection.  Last was my ‘ballistic’ helmet – an experimental flying helmet that supposedly was strong enough to deflect small arms fire – bullets smaller than a fifty caliber round.

That ballistic helmet was so heavy most of the pilots refused to wear it and used the lighter conventional pilot’s helmet. I didn’t care; the weight was a small annoyance if it would help keep me alive. The ballistic helmet did have a weird affect on me though; the weight would cause my head to flop over to one side or the other after about five minutes of flying and remain that way the rest of the mission.

I was a coward at heart. At five feet eight inches tall I would lower my seat all the way to the floor and get the tallest co-pilot in the unit to fly my front seat. The Cobra is like a jet with tandem seating however, unlike our sister services and their go-fast fighters where the pilot sits in front, the Army designed the Cobra helicopter so that the pilot sits in back with the co-pilot up front. The book says that the copilot’s mission is to operate the gun systems from the front seat. In combat though, the copilot’s real mission was to protect the pilot! Cobra copilots were referred to as bullet-catchers. And when you arrived in country, you had to fly as a co-pilot for at least three months. If you lived, then you got be pilot.

With a tall copilot in front, my seat to the floor, my chicken plate in place, my holster in position and my head flopped onto my shoulder, about the only thing you could see sticking up in the cockpit were my eyeballs. Like the old Western Airlines motto; “The only way to fly!”

I grabbed my water jug and a box of C-rations on the way out of the hooch. It’s always above a hundred degrees in that enclosed Cobra Plexiglas canopy if there’s any sunlight at all so I carried lots of water even though it was cool and rainy today, well into the monsoon season in Vietnam. And we’ll probably miss chow tonight at the mess hall so the C’s will come in handy. Hopefully I made a good choice like beans and franks. In my haste I didn’t have time to pick and choose. Please Lord, just so it isn’t beef and potatoes or tuna or scrambled eggs. I didn’t want to look.

As I headed towards the Operations bunker, Mark Stevens joined me from the Slick platoon. The Slick pilots were famous guys in their own right flying UH-1 Hueys; workhorses that could carry up to 10 soldiers and did everything; haul troops, food, ammo, beer, nurses, go-go dancers, wounded, body bags, Generals, Privates, and even Bob Hope - anything, everything, anytime, anywhere…

Mark and I entered the bunker together and stooped low under the corrugated steel roof as we made our way past the piles of stacked sandbags towards the sounds of crackling radios. We emerged into a small room filled with stale cigarette smoke and surrounded by maps of our area of operations, mission status boards showing who was up flying, where they were located, and what unit they were supporting, aircraft status boards indicating what aircraft were available and which ones were down for maintenance or had been destroyed by enemy fire or accident, and the SITREP Board indicating the date, time and short summary of the latest situation reports sent in by our own reconnaissance teams. This was the heartbeat and communications center for the unit.

"The 75th Rangers have a team in trouble somewhere in the mountains out towards Blaze", our Operations sergeant said as he started in on our mission brief and pointed to one of the maps. Blaze was a fire support base cut into the mountains out towards the Ashau Valley; a valley surrounded by mountains in I Corps in the northern part of south Vietnam that was the infamous home of Hamburger Hill.

"You and Mr. Stevens are to go out and find the team", Sarge continued, "they have been in contact with the enemy for six days. They have run out of food, water and ammo and are suffering from exposure in this monsoon weather. On top of that, they're lost and can't give us exact coordinates. You need to find them and get 'em out! Here's your mission sheet with their frequencies and call sign.”

The 75th Rangers were a band of courageous guys specially trained in clandestine operations to find and fix the enemy with small long-range reconnaissance patrol teams (LRRPs) or simply ‘Lerps’. L Company lived next door to us back at the base camp and we trained with them in helicopter operations to drop them into the jungle or pluck them out of tight spots with the use of ropes; long 120-foot lines called McGuire Rigs or simply ‘strings’.

Mark and I looked at the mission sheet and then at each other. The team’s call sign was "Coca Cola". It was already late afternoon, darkness a few hours away, and low clouds in the mountains. We had to find them and we had to do it quick.

Mark had already preflighted his bird as he was on standby that day. His co-pilot, crew chief and door gunner were already up on the flight line waiting for him. My Cobra gunship was all ready to go too since I had returned from the earlier reconnaissance mission. We were up and airborne in less than ten minutes.

We flew a loose trail formation one behind the other up QL-9, the winding dirt highway carved in the mountains by Army engineers that wound its way from the coastal plains near the ancient city of Hue and the 101st Airborne Division’s base at Camp Eagle to the Ashau Valley in the mountains some 40 miles distant.  I was flying my AH-1 Cobra gunship. Mark was flying his UH-1H "Huey".

My Cobra gunship was both escort and protection for Mark's Huey. Mark's crew had M-60 machine guns on board, however my Cobra was specifically designed and built to carry lots of firepower to protect our troop-carrying birds. The Cobras also had missions to protect our little OH-6 Scout Helicopters that flew low and slow to find the bad guys, and to provide close-in air support when our troops were in contact with the enemy.

The Cobra was armed with 52 rockets carried in four pods on stubby wings on each side of the aircraft. Each rocket was tipped with a 17 pound high-explosive warhead equivalent to a 105mm Howitzer canon round in killing power. We also had a swiveling turret under the nose with an Emerson Electric six-barreled Gatling gun that fired 2,500 rounds of 7.62mm bullets per minute. And mounted along side the Gatling gun was a 40mm grenade launcher capable of firing up to 300 grenades per minute. We were loaded for bear.   

We flew low past firebase Bastogne at an altitude less than 100 feet to avoid their artillery gunfire and continued out towards firebase Blaze enroute to our objective - a small valley to the south at the base of a ridgeline where we hoped to establish contact with the beleaguered team. We squeezed under some low clouds settling on the higher ridges and arrived at our destination a few minutes later.
"Coca Cola, Coca Cola, this is Assault 23," I called on our fox-mike (FM) radio that was on the same frequency that the team was operating. Mark was listening in from his Huey as we circled in the punch bowl of the valley with the surrounding mountains obscured by mist and clouds. 

"Coca Cola, Coca Cola, Assault 23," I called again as we strained to hear any word from the team.

My Cobra had been topped off with fuel and loaded with rockets, mini-gun ammo and grenades ready to defend Mark and rescue our comrades. The problem was, I was so heavy that I had to fly in continuous circles because if I let my airspeed drop below 30 miles per hour, my over-loaded gunship would merely run out of power and settle to the ground - and maybe not in one piece! So around and around the punch bowl we flew in low, lazy circles trying to make contact with the Lerps.

“Coco Cola, Coca Cola, this is Assault 23," I tried again and again. After about 15 minutes, Mark called over to me. "23 this is 43, let me try flying up these ravines that are surrounding us and see if I can make contact with the team. I'll take it nice and slow and keep you posted."

Man, that was definitely a dangerous idea; flying up into those blind canyons, into the clouds, no altitude to speak of and little airspeed too in bad-guy country – a recipe for disaster. But Mark was right, we didn't have a choice. The weather was closing in and darkness would soon be upon us.

"Roger that. I'll wait down here in the valley for you," was all I could say.

Mark started up the first ravine and disappeared into the clouds within seconds. "Coco Cola, Coca Cola this is Assault 43," he called. No answer. “Coca Cola, Coca Cola, this is Assault 43.” Again, no answer.

"I'm coming back down. You should see me in a minute,” Mark said as he slowly appeared out of the mist and continued descending into the valley.

"I'll try that ridge line further to the west to see if they might be up there," he radioed and spun off in that direction as I continued circling.

"Coca Cola, Coca Cola, this is Assault 43," I heard Mark transmitting as he disappeared in the distance.

All of a sudden we heard, "Assault 43, this is Coca Cola!" It was an urgent whisper but sounded like a scream in our headsets. "We're in bad trouble here and need immediate extraction!" You could almost taste the terror in that voice.

I heard Mark’s unusually calm reply, “Coca Cola, Assault 43, can you give me your location and number of souls over?”

“Assault 43, Coca Cola, there’s five of us and we are on top of a ridgeline; we don't know our exact location", the strained voice replied. "We need to be extracted immediately; we're out of ammo and still in contact."

“Coca Cola, 43, we need to know where you guys are at. Can you hear my rotor blades, over?" Mark responded. The Huey is notorious for the noise it makes as any Vietnam Vet can attest.

"No we can’t hear you and we don't know where we are, except that we are on top of a ridgeline in the clouds."

"Okay", Mark replied.  “We are down in the valley below you. Just find a ravine or a creek bed and follow it down hill in a northerly direction and we'll find you". I knew exactly what Mark was thinking, as if he had all the answers and it would be a piece of cake, but that's exactly what the team needed to hear to give them hope. Mark’s advice would get them headed downhill and hopefully towards us so we would have a better chance of finding them.

A few minutes later Coca Cola called back; "We've found a stream bed and are following it down hill. Are you guys still there?"

"Yup, we're still here", Mark replied. “Give me a long count, one to ten, and I’ll home in on your signal”, Mark requested.

Army helicopters were equipped with a special electronic device in the cockpit made for situations just like this one. As the LRRP team transmitted on their radio, Mark could turn his helicopter until the needle lined up on the homing instrument on his panel to let him know the direction to the team.  He got a good lock on the signal and his nose was pointing right at one of the ravines ahead of him. 

"23, I'm heading up into this ravine with the creek bed to see if I can make contact with them," Mark advised.

"Roger that," was again about all I could say as he slowly disappeared up the ravine and into the clouds.  I wouldn’t be there to cover him if he ran into trouble.

"Keep talking to me on VHF and I’ll also monitor fox mike" I asked. The VHF was our "company" very high frequency radio to talk to each other. We had three different radios going at any one time; FM to talk to the ground guys like Coca Cola, UHF or ultra-high frequency to talk to the air guys like air traffic control, Air Force, or Navy, and VHF or very high frequency to talk to each other on a dedicated air-to-air frequency just for us.

"I'm heading up into the ravine. I can't see forward at all 'cause of the clouds but I can see the tree tops through the chin bubble and will just keep hopping up the creek bed, tree top to tree top. If we find them, we'll drop the strings and bring 'em out two or three at a time."

Strings were those 60 to 120-foot ropes the Huey's carried on board to drop ammo and supplies into the jungle, rappel troops to the ground when there was not a prepared landing zone available, or rescue people when in tight spots; mostly our own aircrews when they got shot down or ground troops like the LRRPs of L Company, 75th Rangers in this case.

Mark still had a half load of fuel on board and could only handle two or three people at a time dangling from those long lines and still have enough power to hover. We had terrible memories of a recent accident when too many people scrambled onto the lines during a combat rescue and literally dragged one of our Hueys out of the air with their own weight causing the ship to crash. It killed several of the rescued and the rescuers. We wouldn't let that happen today, if we could get to them before the enemy did or the encroaching darkness. That, combined with this lousy weather, would cause us to have to abort the mission completely which was not an option.

"Assault 43, Assault 43", the excited voice called over the radio. "We can hear you, we can hear you", the Ranger said between gasps for air. "We're running down the creek bed towards the noise looking for you!"

Mark’s hunch had paid off!

A few minutes later, Mark's cool, collected voice came back over the radio. "I have you in sight and we're dropping strings. I can only take a few out at a time. Only two people this time out. I repeat, only two people on the strings this time. I'll shuttle two of you down the mountain and come back to get the others,” he repeated.

"23, can you give me a long count? We're coming out." Mark radioed to me. He was so calm it was unnerving. "I'll be on instruments so let me know when you have a visual."


I couldn’t believe what I just heard!  I instantly knew what Mark was going to try and do. He had turned the Huey around, facing downhill with the canyon walls on either side and two Rangers hooked onto his strings dangling far below. He would have to pull them straight up at least 200 feet to clear the trees using every last reserve of horsepower from the engine while flying blind in the clouds with granite on both sides; unbelievable.

He noted the exact heading that he thought would take them safely out. He had requested a long count from me on the FM radio to home in on my signal to bring him out to the valley. He then proceeded to do a blind instrument takeoff straight up into the clouds so the Rangers dangling below would clear the treetops and not drag them all back into the streambed below.

I flew directly toward the ravine into which he had disappeared. It had seemed like hours since I had last seen him. I started counting slowly on the FM radio “one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, niner, ten, niner, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one, long count over” straining to see if they would come into sight.

And there they were! Two bodies appeared above me dangling out the clouds as if on an invisible swing from heaven. No helicopter, no ropes, just two bodies swinging below the clouds.

“43, you're clear!" I yelled. "You’re clear! Come on down!"

With that, Mark's descended the Huey like a butterfly from the overcast sky and fluttered to the ground, gently settling the Rangers in the elephant grass of the valley floor.

As the LRRPs extricated themselves from the strings, Mark called me. "I'll head back up for the rest of the team, keep an eye out will you?" he called, and immediately disappeared into the mist once again.

Mark repeated the same operation all over again to get the remaining members of the team out. It was as exciting and breathtaking as the first time with the rangers swinging from the clouds on strings provided by Alpha Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry.

We were low on fuel and darkness was falling as we flew out of the valley through a dip in a ridgeline and headed towards the nearest refueling point at firebase Bastogne just a few minutes away. As soon as we landed and with the ships still running as we started hot refueling, one of the Lerps jumped out of the Huey and ran around to the front to shake Mark’s hand. He and the others still inside the Huey all turned towards my Cobra and gave me a big thumbs-up. Their smiles were like sparkling sunshine amid the dirt, grime and camouflage that covered their bodies. All of us had lumps in our throats. It had been a great day.

And Mark Stevens, Assault 43, would forever remain a hero in my memories.

-END-

Postscript: On January 25, 1970, Mark Stevens was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his heroic actions.


About the Author:  Lew Jennings is a retired business executive, retired military officer and former airline pilot with over 40 years experience in all types of aircraft from gliders to DC-10 jumbo jets. He flew 726 helicopter combat missions during the war in Vietnam and holds nearly 50 combat decorations including three Distinguished Flying Crosses.