The Cat 'O Death: Redux.

[DemoTex]

The muted whine of the Phantom’s two powerful turbine engines exacerbated my déjà vu. Was it the dream again? No, it was too real; surreal, actually. I had flown against the big anti-aircraft guns which defended the Mu Gia pass all too often. This was to be my 251st, and final air combat mission. Haunting memories of earlier missions nibbled at my concentration.

We were a flight of four F-4Cs, using the callsign “Mad Dog,” already spread to a “fluid four” tactical formation in anticipation of enemy MiG combat air patrols above the northern Ho Chi Minh trail. As we climbed through the last layer of monsoonal nimbostratus clouds, I pulled my helmet visor down to deal with the low, western sun spilling into the cockpit. The soft sounds of Simon and Garfunkle drifted through my headset from the Armed Forces Vietnam Radio station that Dixon, my guy-in-back, had tuned on the ADF radio.

We made a turn towards Laos, and the trail, over Quang Tri. “King,” the callsign of the lumbering four-engine C-130 which served as mission controller for this little corner of the world, was talking with a “Sandy” (an A-1 Skyraider) which had come off a target near Tchepone, Laos, with battle damage. “Sandy” had been working an F-100 “Misty” shoot-down. The “Misty” pilot was in the basket being hoisted aboard the rescue helicopter when “Sandy” was hit.

Then came a shrill, constrained “Mayday” from the damaged A-1. He was bailing out. His wingman spotted his chute.

By that time we were over Khe Sahn, almost on top of the drama that was unfolding thirty miles away. “King” knew that a flight of heavily armed F-4s was a godsend to the rapidly deteriorating situation on the Ho Chi Minh trail. With a few terse words from “King” we were sent in to support the downed “Sandy” pilot.

We rolled in on the target. Initially, the few orange balls floating desultorily up to meet us seemed harmless; even eerily beautiful. Then, as sudden as a desert cloudburst, the anti-aircraft fire poured up in sheets. The NVA gunners were good today. They were shooting payback, and payback – we knew – is a motherfucker. The lead ship in our formation, flown by a Korean War veteran named Tim Smith, took a direct hit from a 57 mm anti-aircraft round. Smith and his backseater, Hoke Wyche, never knew what hit them.

As I pressed the attack in a screaming dive towards the NVA troops that were beating the brush for the downed A-1 driver, my perception of the scene went into slow motion; freeze frame. “And here's to you, Mrs. Robinson. Jesus loves you more than you will know. (Woo, woo, woo).” My corner of the world shattered with the canopy of my F-4. Another explosion ripped through the bowels of the airplane. “God bless you please, Mrs. Robinson. Heaven holds a place for those who pray (Hey, hey, hey...hey, hey, hey).” Red lights and loud bells told me what I already sensed; the airplane was coming apart: “ENGINE #2 FIRE; HYDRAULIC #1 FAIL; ENGINE #1 LOW OIL PRESSURE.”

“Time to go,” I told my backseater, Ab Dixon. “Bailout! Bailout! Bailout!” I heard his ejection seat fire him through the shattered canopy and into the worst of his nightmares. Seconds later I followed. Under a camouflaged parachute canopy I drifted towards the NVA soldiers, contemplating the inevitable. Dust-to-dust and ash-to-ash, I entered the mouth of the cat of death.

[oneighty]

1. This one too Demo

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