From “Happy Valley” Phan Rang AB, Vietnam…keeping the memories alive, Phan Rang AB News No. 125 “Stories worth telling”
Lucky Devils Prove Luck In Dual Bailout, Pickup
(Phan Fare, The Happy Valley Weekly, February 13, 1969)
They call themselves “Lucky Devils,” these Air Force fighter pilots of the 614th TFS Luck surely was with three Lucky Devils recently when they flew a “routine” mission against the Viet Cong.
“Our target for the day was enemy bunkers in IV Corps, about 60 miles west of Bien Hoa,” said the leader of the two-plane flight. Speaking was Major Norman H. Rushton. With him on that mission in an F-100F were Captain Gerald G. Potter, who was ‘breaking in” 1St Lt. Donald Muller, who had just arrived from the states.
“I flew the first attack pass,” Major Rushton said of his 118th combat sortie in Vietnam. Lieutenant Muller’s “F” followed Rushton as they swooped down and released their weapons.
“Then it happened,” the Lieutenant said. “The plane was ripped by a violent explosion just as we were pulling out of the dive over the target.
“Controls were shaky as the plane just about flipped over, headed for the ground. Fire warning lights lit up the cockpit, and the engine started to become unglued. Lieutenant Muller struggled at the controls to get his plane over the nearby Song Co Chien river.
“As soon as we got there, I said, ‘O.K., it’s time to go!’” he continued. “Potter ejected first blowing the cockpit canopy. With the right side of the fuselage burning quite a bit by now, I took my foot off the rudder and punched out.”
As Major Ruston circled above radioing for help, both pilots were floating to earth about one mile apart, one over land, the other over the river. Captain Potter’s chute was torn badly enough that Muller could see the torn stripes of his buddy’s chute flapping as it drifted to earth.
“When I popped the canopy”, Potter said, “I started spinning backwards. The opening shock of the parachute blossoming jolted me quite severely. It might have been then that I got this bruised nose.
“I got my bearings and looked up at my chute canopy,” said Potter who had never bailed out before. “It had big holes in it which increased my fall rate. That was all right with me as I wanted to get into the safety of the water – but fast!”
“I could see people on the shore,” Potter continued. “People were yelling and I could hear gunshots. I got rid of my mask and popped my water wings. As I splashed down, I pulled the quick release of my harness, and the chute collapsed.”
He estimated he landed about 600 to 700 feet from shore. The weather was clear, but a 25- knot surface wind made the water choppy.
Meanwhile, Muller was anxiously pulling on his parachute risers in an attempt to steer his landing toward the river, but wind currents took him inland.
“Floating down, I could see four men shooting at me with rifles,” Muller continued. How close were they? “I could see that two of them were quite old-that’s how close!
“I landed face down in the mud of that rice paddy,” Muller said with a smile. “When I got rid of my helmet and chute, I looked up and there were those four running down the part at me. I radioed Rushton where to strafe and within seconds, just as they were about to run over me, vroom! Here comes Rushton like gangbusters.”
“I couldn’t see the enemy,” Ruston explained, “but Muller kept his cool and radioed exactly where he wanted those cannon shells tossed.”
Then Muller heard the message of his radio that gave him hope: “We’re on our way,” said the voic of the flight leader. “Hold on! Stay where you are.”
The army chopper pilot was getting ground fire as it hovered in for the pick up. “Can’t see him,” the chopper pilot radioed Ruston. Making another pass, Ruston rationed the chipper to “Land on the chute. That’s where he is.” Meanwhile, Potter was bobbing in the river attempting to paddle away from shore.
“I didn’t know if the people on the each were friendlies or not,” Potter explained. “Soon an Army chopper which happened to be in the area attempted to pick me up. It had no way to do it, so it left.
“Then another Army chopper pilot brought his bird in. Keep in mind that his craft is designed for land operations. He had such fine control that be brought it right down to river level. The next thing I knew, I could feel myself being pulled aboard.
“As we took off up the river, I could see people waving to us,” Potter concluded. The two recovered pilots reunited at Can Tho. There, they boarded an Air Force C-123 and flew back home. At this point I was unaware of where Lt. Muller was, but when the doctor finished examining me he told me that Muller was just down the hall being examined and that we should go to the flight line as there was a C-123 getting ready to depart for Phan Rang. Talk about a couple of “Lucky Devils!” I left the doctor’s office, looked down the hall, and there was Lt. Muller. He saw me and shouted, “G** D*** that was neat!” My response was, “You crazy fool. We were nearly killed!”
When we compared notes, we realized that the strafing pass flown by Major Rushton silenced the gunfire along the south side of the river and enabled the Army helicopters to pick us up safely and earn their rewards. It was truly gratifying to see the effort put out to rescue us. It was as if the war stopped for the time it took to save us and then everyone got back to what they had been doing. When we went out to the flight line to find the C-123 we could see the aircraft commander, an Air Force major, pumping oil into the left engine from a 55-gallon drum. This was a C-123K model that had two R-2800 radial engines and two J85 turbojet engines. The J85s had been added in Vietnam to assist in short field takeoffs.
After jumping out of the aircraft…
“(Little did I know on January 28 that just over three months later I would be sitting in a classroom on Century Boulevard in Los Angeles, as a new-hire pilot for Western Airlines.) Lt. Muller and I were checked out again by our flight surgeon and went back on the flying schedule. One of the other pilots who had also come to Phan Rang from the 352nd at Myrtle Beach had an extra application for employment with Western Airlines so I filled it out and mailed it to Los Angeles. Amazingly, I received a letter back telling me to contact them as soon as I got back from Vietnam and had separated from the service.
I did just that and was offered a class date of May 9, 1969. Unfortunately, I was furloughed a few months later and spent about two years selling real estate and flying the C-141 with the Air Force Reserve at Travis AFB, California, eventually getting a recall notice from Western in the fall of 1971. For the next 29 years I flew for Western, and then Delta, retiring in 2000 as a B757/767 Captain in Salt Lake City. “
Jerry’s story From Issue 51 of The Intake..
I was an instructor in the F-100 flying with the 614th TFS, the “Lucky Devils,” based at Phan Rang Air Base, located about halfway up the coast of South Vietnam. On January 28 I was flying a “training mission” with Lt. Don Muller. He was in the front seat, and I was sitting in the back seat of a two-seat F-100F. (Making a landing from the backseat of the F-100F was part of the check-out to be an instructor. It was a challenge as you could not see squat from the back seat and consequently had no depth perception. I must have made an acceptable backseat landing as they certified me as an instructor.) We were flying a two-ship formation, with Major Norm Rushton leading the flight in a single seat F-100D. I was giving Maj. Rushton a flight lead check to qualify him to fly lead and Lt. Muller, who was new to the squadron, an instructional ride on a routine bombing mission. Talk about multi-tasking—all on a combat mission that was euphemistically called a “training mission”.
Many of our missions were off the Alert pad where we were scrambled and directed to meet a FAC (Forward Air Controller) who would then brief us on our target. This was a scheduled mission, fragged (scheduled) to accomplish the “training” that day. We flew to the coordinates where our FAC, in an Air Force O-2, was orbiting, and checked in on his discrete radio frequency to receive our target briefing. He said something that I was really not expecting and that got my attention. As he was briefing us on the location of our target and the recommended pattern for our bomb runs, he mentioned that there was a 37mm radar-tracking gun hidden in the jungle nearby but that it had not been active that day. The location of this target was unusual for us as we seldom flew south of Saigon into IV Corps. This information immediately got my full attention, as a radar-tracking gun was a definite threat. We proceeded with our mission, but this concern remained in the back of my mind.
Major Rushton, the flight lead, rolled-in on his first pass and fired the entire contents of the pair of rocket pods he was carrying. Lt. Muller was getting in position to roll in on his first pass and would be dropping two Mk-82 500lb bombs. Our altitude at roll-in was approximately 7,000 feet AGL (above ground level). I immediately saw that Lt. Muller was too close to the target, resulting in him entering a steep dive angle of about 45 degrees. The proper dive angle for our bomb sight calculation was 30 degrees and this steep dive meant that the bombs would be off target if dropped. On intercom I told Muller that he might as well not pickle the bombs and plan to come around for another run. This would have been good advice if we were practicing at the range, but it soon became obvious that it was not a good maneuver in a combat zone. Muller made what I would call a “lazy” pullout, the bottom of which was about 2500 feet AGL, and just as the aircraft’s nose was above the horizon there was a horrendous explosion. The aircraft instantly rolled inverted and went into a dive towards the ground. A thought flashed through my mind, “Oh shit, we’re going to die!”
I grabbed the stick to roll the aircraft upright but there was no flight control response and the stick felt like a wet noodle. I then stepped on the rudder and the aircraft rolled over and actually came out in a slight nose high attitude. A quick evaluation of the situation was as follows: the fire warning light was on, and all the warning bells and whistles were blaring. Not good!
I told Muller that we had to get out and that I would eject first—the normal procedure in the two-seat F-100F was for the back seater to go first. I raised the ejection handles and the canopy departed as advertised, sending a 200-knot blast of air into the cockpit. Luckily my helmet visor was down. I then counted to 2 before the next step, which was squeezing the handles to fire the rocket seat and eject. As I did, the 22G rocket ride sent me well away from the burning jet. But now I had another problem.
Whenever I flew a close air support mission, I always left my zero-delay-lanyard hooked to the parachute “D” ring in case of a low altitude ejection. This would cause the parachute to deploy immediately upon ejection. As I squeezed the ejection handles (and rode the “A” ride) it felt as though I was tumbling backwards. Then I felt the sudden jolt of the chute opening. The jolt may have been a little on the heavy side because when I looked up at the parachute canopy, I saw the ejection seat tangled in the shroud lines about 10 feet above my head and, more disconcertingly, I saw a gaping hole in the parachute canopy. (In fact, Muller stated later that he could see the hole in the canopy from his position as he was floating down.)
I was headed toward the middle of the river, which must have been at least 200 yards wide, and I was coming down faster than normal with that hole in the canopy. At this point my biggest fear was that the seat would come down on top of me when I hit the water. I made a quick decision not to worry about the seat but to concentrate on making the water landing. They always told us that our training would kick in and we would remember to do everything on the checklist by rote. Luckily there was a 25-knot wind blowing and I just happened to be facing it. I thought the wind should carry the seat off behind me when I released the parachute as I touched the water.
This made me feel much better. I began trying to remember what I should do next so I took off my oxygen mask and threw it to the side, found the quick release latches for the parachute and hooked my thumbs in them so I would be ready to release the chute when my feet hit the water. I found out later that there was more to the checklist that I should have accomplished, like deploying my survival seat pack, but I really didn’t want to float around in the raft because as
I was coming down, I could see people on the south side of the river, and I heard gunfire. (Could they be shooting at me?!) Another step in the checklist that I did not forget was to deploy my water wings before I hit the water.
When I landed in the river and released my chute, I immediately let some air out of the water wings so I would be as low in the water as I could get. This all came off without incident, so I went to the next step—I pulled out the survival radio and yelled for help.
About that time Major Rushton made a strafing pass at the guys on the south side of the river. He came low and right over my head from behind. Although I had been flying the aircraft for over 4 years, I had no idea how loud the F-100 was or what the guns sounded like, but I sure learned fast. It was not only very loud, but it reassured me that I wasn’t alone. Now I began to wonder where Don Muller had landed.
As I learned later, he had an exciting ride down in his parachute. As he drifted away from the river and was heading toward a rice paddy, he could see men pointing their guns at him and shooting. How close were they?
Close enough to tell that one seemed very old and that his concern for them shooting at him caused him to get tangled up in his parachute shroud lines when he landed in the mud. He said he had to cut his way out of the lines with his survival knife.
Meanwhile I was bobbing along, hunkering down low in the water. I heard on my survival radio that rescue helicopters were on the way, so I then began to wonder if there were any sharks in the river – this just came to me because of a scary experience in sea survival training where I mistook a dolphin for a shark. For some reason that thought just came to my mind.
About then a small Army helicopter, an OH-6 Cayuse (known as a Loach), appeared nearby, with an Army Lt. Col. in the right seat. (We had been told in our briefings that the Army gave out awards to their helicopter crews who rescued a downed pilot.) The Lt. Col. motioned toward the chopper’s landing skid with his elbow hooked, wanting me to hang on and they would drag me to the opposite shore. I did not think too much of that idea but gave it a try anyway. As I was trying to hold on the chopper was coming lower toward the water and with the forward motion the water was going over my head and up my nose, so I let go.
The Lt. Col. did not give up so easily. He unstrapped his gun belt, which contained a holster with a pearl handled revolver in it, and he hooked the gun belt around the skid, wanting me to hang onto the gun belt to give me a better grip. At some point in this process, I watched the pearl handled revolver fall out of the holster and sink into the murky river. I felt too bad for him that I gave this new procedure a try, putting my arm through his gun belt and holding on, thinking that now they could at least keep my head above water. After sort of plowing me through the water for about 20 feet I let go and let my water wings do their thing. The little Loach hovered beside me for a few minutes watching me bob around.
At this point the Lt. Col. pointed behind me and I turned around to the best sight I had seen all day—an Army Huey gunship with his door open, coming sideways across the water toward me. I thanked God because I didn’t think I could keep the sharks away much longer!
As the Huey slid across the water toward my position, all I had to do was reach up and two crewmembers dragged me aboard. When I tried to roll over onto my back, I realized that I had forgotten to do another one of the steps in my checklist. I had forgotten that the survival seat pack was still attached to my ass! But at least I got to bring some souvenirs home.
I immediately thanked all the Army crewmembers and began wondering where they were taking me. It turned out that there was a small Army post not far away with a field hospital, so they landed there.
I waved goodbye to the crew and was taken to the “hospital.” Someone ushered me into the doctor’s office, and he gave me a quick exam. The only thing he could find wrong was my cherry red nose where the mic in my oxygen mask had made its imprint during the ejection. He said everything was OK but that he would put me in for a Purple Heart just the same. Surprisingly, I was awarded it sometime later, but it wasn’t for my nose injury but because I had ejected from a burning jet. Anyway, I’ll take it.
At this point I was unaware of where Lt. Muller was, but when the doctor finished examining me he told me that Muller was just down the hall being examined and that we should go to the flight line as there was a C-123 getting ready to depart for Phan Rang. Talk about a couple of “Lucky Devils!” I left the doctor’s office, looked down the hall, and there was Lt. Muller. He saw me and shouted, “G** D*** that was neat!” My response was, “You crazy fool. We were nearly killed!”
When we compared notes, we realized that the strafing pass flown by Major Rushton silenced the gunfire along the south side of the river and enabled the Army helicopters to pick us up safely and earn their rewards. It was truly gratifying to see the effort put out to rescue us. It was as if the war stopped for the time it took to save us and then everyone got back to what they had been doing. When we went out to the flight line to find the C-123 we could see the aircraft commander, an Air Force major, pumping oil into the left engine from a 55-gallon drum. This was a C-123K model that had two R-2800 radial engines and two J85 turbojet engines. The J85s had been added in Vietnam to assist in short field takeoffs.
The major told us that the left engine had been using oil and giving him trouble all day, but said, “Don’t sweat it. If we have to shut it down after take-off, we also have two jet engines that we will fire up.” Sure enough, just as we broke ground on takeoff, we heard the sound of the big radial engine unwinding. Muller looked at me and I said, “Here we go again!” The major fired up the jet engines and we pressed on to Phan Rang without further problems. After landing, with a fire truck escorting us to the parking ramp, we exited the aircraft and met Col. Galin, our wing commander, who was glad to see us and was anxious to hear our story.
PHAN RANG AND ON TO WESTERN AIRLINES
(Little did I know on January 28 that just over three months later I would be sitting in a classroom on Century Boulevard in Los Angeles, as a new-hire pilot for Western Airlines.) Lt. Muller and I were checked out again by our flight surgeon and went back on the flying schedule. One of the other pilots who had also come to Phan Rang from the 352nd at Myrtle Beach had an extra application for employment with Western Airlines so I filled it out and mailed it to Los Angeles. Amazingly, I received a letter back telling me to contact them as soon as I got back from Vietnam and had separated from the service.
I did just that and was offered a class date of May 9, 1969. Unfortunately, I was furloughed a few months later and spent about two years selling real estate and flying the C-141 with the Air Force Reserve at Travis AFB, California, eventually getting a recall notice from Western in the fall of 1971. For the next 29 years I flew for Western, and then Delta, retiring in 2000 as a B757/767 Captain in Salt Lake City.
