First In, Last Out (Page 2)

Combat Controllers
First In, Last Out
(continued)

"That was really it," Freedman recalled later. "They sent in a plane but the pilot saw no one left on the ground, so he took off. No one would come back. At that point we had two choices. Either be taken prisoner or fight it out. There was no doubt about it. We had 11 magazines left among us and we were going to take as many of them with us as we could."

"I told Lundie that if he made it and I didn't, to be sure to get my wallet so those bastards wouldn't take it."

The C-123 crew had seen them, but was too far down the runway to stop. And soon another C-123, piloted by Lt Col Joe Jackson and Maj Jesse Campbell, landed in a barrage of enemy bullets and mortar shells, screeched to a stop long enough for the combat controllers and their mission commander to jump in, and took off, trailed by the "biggest hail of tracers you've ever seen."

Mort Freedman and Jim Lundie's experience at Kham Duc is by no means "all in a day's work" for combat controllers. But it servers to dramatically underscore the "combat" in combat control. Vietnam is providing Combat Control Teams (CCT) with their first real test under fire.

"Our purpose in being, as planned in 1952, and as practiced in Vietnam today, is basically unchanged," explained Maj Robert Barinowski, head combat controller in Vietnam. "We've had a few variations in theme, but our primary task is still that of performing as air traffic controllers in a forward, austere airstrip or drop zone."

The need for the combat control function arose in World War II when, in Sicily, Army paratroopers were scattered all over the countryside because no one was controlling the drops from the ground. The dispersal of men and equipment made the airborne force ineffective as a combat unit.

Since that time Air Force combat controllers had been a part of US troop deployments to meet crises in Lebanon, the Congo, the Dominican Republic and were put on alert during the Cuban crisis in 1962. During troop and cargo airlifts, they are always the first in to the airstrip or drop zone to set up marker panels, portable communication and navigational gear necessary to accurately guide the main wave of airlift aircraft in.

But never has the combat control team concept, and the mettle of the controllers, been tested like it is in Vietnam today. And as the nature of the Vietnam war is one of constant change in tactics and strategy, so it has followed that combat control has had to adapt and innovate with the shifting scenes.

One combat controller who speaks with great authority on the job of the "Blue Berets" in Vietnam is Capt Hayden F. Sears, Jr., who has been in country since 1965, longer than any other controller.

"When I arrived we had 24 men and were housed in a shack here at Tan Son Nhut," he recalls. "Now we are three time that number. In the beginning, we had many air traffic control (ATC) missions, because control towers had not yet been constructed at various remote airstrips."

"But today many of those strips have permanent towers and some navigational equipment. As a result, our ATC mission has decreased and our role as a field extension of the airlift command and control system has become more prominent."

Using high-frequency radios, the combat controllers feed vital data from remote airstrips back to the 834th Air Division Airlift Control Center at Tan Son Nhut, the nerve center for all in-country airlift operations.

"Also during the first year, we had very few rocket and mortar attacks to hinder our job," Sears continued. "That sure has changed! Now we're always sandbagging the radio jeep and always digging a foxhole on the DZ for the combat controller."

Today, at the peak of their activity in Vietnam, combat controllers are deployed throughout the country by the Airlift Control Center. The men are divided into three teams, each headed by an officer and consisting of air traffic controllers and radio maintenance specialists. One team is always on alert, ready with jeep and portable navigational aids to deploy by airlift in as little as 15 minutes.

Their missions are varied. Like a one-day air traffic control job at a remote airfield guiding in airlift C-130s, C-123s or C-7s laden with badly needed supplies. Or accompanying the 1st Air Cavalry Division tramping through the jungles for 30 days, providing necessary control for emergency airdrops of ammunition, rations and fuel. The operating conditions vary, too---from the relative quiet of nearby outgoing friendly artillery, to the terrors of "incoming" rounds of a Kham Duc or Khe Sanh.

Between field missions, the combat controllers go through numerous standard checks at their Tan Son Nhut home station, maintaining proficiency in air traffic control procedures, packing parachutes, performing radio maintenance, cleaning their weapons (the M-16 and the shortened version, the CAR-15 used in paradrops) and spending time on the rifle range.

Perhaps the clearest image of what a combat controller's life in Vietnam is all about is found by snatching glimpses of experiences during various operations.

Since most of the CCT was at Khe Sanh at one time or another during the 78-day siege, that operation---in which eight controllers received Purple Hearts---provides a good look.

Jim Lundie was there, crouched in a foxhole, directing aircraft in and out of the airstrip on February 23, when the NVA fired over 1,000 artillery rounds into the combat base, or the equivalent of nearly one round a minute. He'll never forget that day. It was his 21st birthday.
Following the crash of a Marine helicopter, Captain Sears and his team of SSgt Jimmy Grishom, Sgt Arthur Hosey, Freedman and Lundie, ignored the possible explosion of the helicopters fuel and incoming motar rounds to pull the crew members out of the burning wreckage. Although two were already dead, the third was saved by their action.
TSgt Thomas Monley and his team of Sgts David McCracken, Erwin Rhodes and Wlater Smith, have been awarded Silver Stars for pushing a burning pallet of mortar rounds away from Khe Sanh's populated bunkers (Lifeline to Khe Sanh, The Airman, July 1968).

During another operation the 1st Air Cavalry Division pushed into the A Shau Valley, an enemy stronghold. TSgt Richard Taylor, SSgt James Philpot and Sgts Gary Brock and Michael Welding went into the valley's thick, jungle carpeted floor with the first wave of assault helicopters, which received some of the heaviest enemy antiaircraft fire of the war. Once in the valley, the CCT marked the assault landing strip for C-123s and C-7s and directed C-130s over the drop zone for emergency drops of ammunition, rations and fuel. During the same operation, SSgt Robert Mahaffey withstood five straight hours of enemy shelling to perform the control mission.

On one of the rare airborne operations, Capt Danny M. Pugh, a 19-month Vietnam veteran, led his eight-man team in combat control's classic role---support of a mass parachute assault. Jumping 30 minutes ahead of a 1,000-man Vietnamese paratroop formation at Van Kiep, the CCT was dropped short of the drop zone. Realizing the error, and realizing the potential disaster if the mass formation was also dropped short, Pugh led his team at a rapid clip, overland, through enemy territory. They found the DZ, set up communications equipment, and guided the formation in---right on schedule. There was no doubt about the value of combat control on that occasion.

On another jump two years ago, Capt Sears, who has four combat jumps to his credit (more than any other controller), parachuted into a drop zone in the Northern II Corps Tactical Zone.

"We jumped from about 800 feet," he said, "and immediately could hear ground fire coming up at us. All of a sudden, I felt something, and looked up to see two bullet holes in my 'chute. When we hit the ground, we started receiving a lot of sniper fire."

More Than Guts and Glory
But combat control is more than the guts and glory of combat. It takes a special breed to hurdle all the obstacles set in the path of earning and keeping the blue beret. In addition to jump school, combat controllers attend other schools: control tower, combat control, survival, tropical survival, artic survival, water survival, amphibious training, High Altitude Low Opening, parachute rigging, and radio maintenance. And what's more, failing any one school means elimination from combat control.

"In Vietnam, in a given month, we work more airfields than drop zones," said Major Barinowski. "Consequently, I place heavy emphasis on proficiency in airlanding techniques---operating three or four radios, proper voice procedures, 'stacking' airplanes; and on two other tasks which have become part of our mission in Vietnam---coordinating artillery firings with landings of aircraft, and installation and maintenance of the Ground Proximity Extraction System, a method used by the C-130s to delivery bulky cargo loads to the ground forces.

But no matter what role combat controllers perform, one fact is certain: they are a vital part of the airlift effort in Vietnam. It doesn't really matter whether they're the "first in and last out." It's what they do in between that counts. And that adds up to quite a lot.


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