Combat Landing

In 1968, my father made a combat landing into Pleiku during the Tet offensive. He was a navigator aboard a C-130, flying in from a base in the Philippines. His aircraft was fully loaded with ammunition - intended to resupply the beleaguered garrison desperately defending against the onslaught of the North Vietnamese army...

When the airplane was 5 miles away from the runway, they were still flying fast - well over 300 mph, and high above the anti-aircraft shells at 10,000 feet. At that point, the pilot told the crew to buckle in, and dove the plane steeply. My father said it felt like they were diving straight down, but it was probably about 45 degrees. The pilot accelerated into the dive. The whole plane began to shake, and the roar of the engines, the wind drag on the plane, and the fusillade from below was so loud that the crew couldn’t hear each other - even though they were wearing tight-fitting radio headsets.

At 1000 feet, the pilot suddenly brought the plane out of the dive and straightened his trajectory toward the air strip. My father said it felt like his stomach fell into his air boots... he nearly passed out, and then threw up in his mask. He tore off the mask - he didn’t need it anymore - and began radioing final coordinates to the pilot.

At this point, they were about a half a mile from the runway and actually over enemy lines. My father knew he was trapped in a flying bomb, and as he watched the tracer bullets arcing towards him, he called out to his mother. He prayed for his children and sent a love offering to Sandra, (my mother).

They were flying fast, and the pilot finally had a visual on the runway. My father’s job was done, and he was ordered into the belly of the plane to help the loadmaster with the plane’s escape hatchways.

A combat landing requires the crew to land the plane and taxi as fast as they could toward the forward bunker. (They did not dare to ditch the aircraft near any hangars, for fear of the explosion demolishing all buildings within a 100-yard radius...) As soon as the plane was stopped, they were to exit the plane immediately and run for shelter - leaving the cargo to be unloaded under cover of darkness.

My father groped his way aft in the semi-darkness, bumping past the stacks of 105 mm howitzer shells, and rounds of 30-06. He was sweating now in his light green flight suit - the plane was out of the cold upper atmosphere and the fierce Vietnamese sun slowly warmed the fuselage. He was also sweating from fear - raw, acrid, a musky odor rising from deep in his core.

The plane hit the runway so hard that my father was thrown off his feet and crashed into a bulkhead. He had no time to think about the burning pain in his shoulder, as he and the other crew members threw open the flight bolts in the hatchways and got ready to clear the escape route.

He could hear his heartbeat - a furious pounding of blood and adrenaline. He could hear the distant gunfire, heard the sound of live ammo whizzing over the plane. The plane suddenly skidded to a stop with a shuddering lurch that threw the huddled men against each other, shaking and cursing. The pilot screamed on the PA, “everybody out, NOW!’’

Suddenly, there was a screaming yellow light in his eyes as the hatches were pushed out onto the tarmac. He numbly followed the others, waiting his turn to leap to the ground, 6 feet below. And then he was running. The light blinded him, the tropical sun hammered his head, and he ran... gasping. It was a long run to the bunker - maybe 200 yards, a slow-motion slog through the dense tropical air. He heard the bullets but kept his eyes forward toward the refuge of the dirt bunker. His feet moved in the slow motion, watery way of dream-running... It was a suspended eternity...

He finally flopped down in the dirt near the co-pilot, both of them gasping and hacking - clawing for breath. Grateful... to be able to.

He never forgot that experience, and he could only bear to tell me one time. I was 8 years old when this happened to him. I learned about it last year. I was 59...

My dad has always been my hero...

Eric Lee, 2022