"Shot Down"

 by Joseph "Jake" Jacobs '66-'67

We were a standard flight of two birds returning from a routine re-supply mission to Duc Pho, just South of our Chu Lai base. We were in a "friendly" area so there was not much to worry about.

"Ping..., clang....!"

I spun around and looked back down the inside of the aircraft, trying to spot the source of the sound. Both of my gunners were pointing aft towards the engine compartments. The pilot came on the intercom:

"Jake, what the Hell was that?"

I had that eerie feeling that we had just taken a round, so I walked back towards the aft of the bird, inspecting every square inch until I was right under the engine compartments. I took off my helmet to listen to the engines. Everything sounded normal. I put my helmet back on and told the pilot I was going to open the engine compartments.

I reached up and slowly unlatched one of the engine compartment hatches. Everything looked OK. I let the first hatch swing down and jumped back, just in case there was any hot oil accumulated on the hatch. Nothing. Again, everything appeared normal. After unlatching the second hatch and reporting everything A-OK to the pilot, I locked the hatches back in place. I had not found anything wrong. However, anyone who has every flown in combat knows that feeling down deep in your gut when something is just not right.

I crawled up the ramp to check out the aft transmission. I released the safety catch on the upper hatch. Luckily I had put my helmet back on and had my visor down. Suddenly I was drenched in hot oil. Not quite hot enough to blister or scald, but hot enough to hurt and scare the Hell out of me.

I pulled myself up onto the hatch to be able to see the aft transmission oil level gauge. I was sure we’d taken a bullet in the transmission as we were obviously loosing oil. I was really scared. If we lost all our oil, the transmission would seize up, the rotor blades would mesh and we’d fall out of the sky like a huge green rock!

When I was finally able to get into a position to read the gauge, my heart jumped into my throat. It showed EMPTY! I keyed my mike to advise the pilot and no sound came out of my mouth. I swallowed, licked my lips and shouted:

"We’ve taken a hit in the aft transmission! We’re loosing all of our oil! We’ve got to get her down, NOW!"

"Jake, try to find the hole and plug it. We’ll find someplace to set down."

While the pilot put out the Mayday call, I scrambled down and flung open the toolbox. I grabbed some rags, a hammer and a screwdriver. I figured that maybe I could some how jam rags into the hole and stop the leaking until we could land. I crawled back up on the hatch, slipping and sliding in the oil. I couldn’t find the hole anywhere. I just knew that we were simply going to crash and that was the end of it! We were going to "buy the farm"!

I heard the pilot’s voice call to me on the intercom. He had found a clearing near a village and we were going to "auto-rotate". We pulled the locking pins out from the machine gun mounts, unfortunately we were carrying those huge .50 caliber monster machine guns. I wrapped the ammo belt around the barrel, slung a belt of .50 caliber. ammo over each shoulder and dropped the forward door. The instant the landing gear hit the ground, I unplugged from the intercom, slapped the gunner on the helmet, grabbed a full can of ammo in one hand, while cradling the monster in my arms and leapt out of the door.

My heart was pounding so loud in my ears, it sounded like thunder. As the engines wound down, I propped up the machine gun on a dirt mound at a two O’clock position from the helicopter. I glanced over my shoulder, under the helicopter and saw my gunner in position at eight O’clock.

When the engines stopped, the silence was tremendous. I looked up and instinctively applied pressure to the trigger on my weapon. Thank God I took a second look. There, not further than 100 yards, were a bunch of curious children inching cautiously towards us. Beyond them I could see a village. I shouted:

"Dung lai! Dung lai!"

The kids fell to the ground. At that instant, our other bird touched down just off to our four O’clock. Luckily, they were transporting eight or ten Marines back to Chu Lai. These guys spilled out of the aircraft and set up a protective perimeter.

By this time the other aircraft in our flight dropped into the LZ. There were a good fifty yards of rice paddy between us. I took off on the run. I was wearing my helmet, that solid fiberglass, bullet proof chest plate, my .38 cal. pistol, two dozen extra rounds and carrying the .50 caliber machine gun with 100 rounds wrapped around the barrel, two belts of 100 rounds, one on each shoulder.

Once the pilots and the gunner were on their way, I flew across that rice paddy and dove through the doorway of the aircraft. To this day I’d swear on a stack of bibles that I didn’t even get my feet wet. I was lying on the deck of that helicopter gasping for breath when I heard the engines shut down. "Now what?", I thought.

As it turned out, we had landed just outside of a friendly village that was within a "no-fire" zone. So, now we had to go back to our helicopter and find out just what had happened. So, off I went, slowly walking back through that rice paddy. I sunk in the mud and gunk over my boots. I felt like I was sinking. There was no way that I would make to my bird, loaded the way I was. Two of the Grunts who had been on the second aircraft came over and took the ammo from me. It was still hard going. How in Hell had I run across that damn rice paddy with all that equipment? Easy: plain and simple unadulterated fear!

Then, to make matters even worse, I found no hole in the transmission. Yes, it had been a bullet, but it had hit the APP (Auxiliary Power Plant). I stood there staring at the aft transmission gauge which now read: "FULL". Now that we were back on the ground, the transmission was just fine but, we had no way of starting our engines to fly back to the base. Had I remembered that the gauge never shows an oil level with the transmission engaged, we could have flown back with no problem at all and landed normally. I was in deep s—t now!

Within 30 minutes the REACT Emergency Maintenance Team landed in two birds. Out stomped Staff Sergeant Otis (Big "O") Felder, who by now had heard over the radio what had happened. He stood there, hands on his hips, glaring down at me, eyes bulging out of a red, rage swollen face:

"Goddamn it son! Didn’t anyone ever teach you that when the Goddamned transmission is turning, the Goddamned gauge won’t show any Goddamned oil level, because the Goddamned oil is swirling around inside the Goddamned transmission! And now, Goddamn it, you got me and my Goddamned team out in this Goddamned field to fix your Goddamned aircraft. Get your Goddamned butt out of my way so we can fix your Goddamned aircraft. "

I slunk away to sit up front inside my bird. Yeah, I knew that the gauge didn’t show oil levels when the transmission was engaged, but being shot at, drenched in hot oil, scared out of my mind and positive that we were going to crash, I had simply forgotten that one simple little fact. But, even more embarrassing was the fact that Big "O" wouldn’t even let me work on my own aircraft. In hindsight, it was probably a wise decision. If I’d have made one slight mistake, Big "O" would have buried a wrench "somewhere where the sun don’t shine".

I took a lot of flack from the guys in the squadron over that one, although I never did admit that I was just plain too scared out of my mind to think straight.

Postscript: S/Sgt. Otis (Big "O") Felder was one of the most colorful men I ever met. He could scare the wits out of you, but at the same time, he taught us a lot. He is probably responsible for some of us coming back alive.