Название: Mohawk Recon: Vietnam from Treetop Level with the 1st Cavalry, 1968-1969Автор: Russell Pettis
Издательство: McFarland & Company, Inc.
Год: 2021
Страниц: 192
Язык: английский
Формат: pdf, epub (true)
Размер: 10.18 MB
Before unmanned combat drones, there was the Grumman OV-1C Mohawk, a twin-engine turboprop fixed-wing reconnaissance aircraft loaded with state-of-the-art target detection systems. Crewed by a pilot and observer, it flew at treetop level by day, taking panoramic photographs. By night it scanned the landscape from 800 feet with side-looking airborne radar (SLAR) and infrared. This lively, detailed memoir recounts the author's 1968-1969 tour with the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam, serving as a technical observer (T.O.) aboard an unarmed Mohawk, searching for elusive enemy forces near the DMZ and along the Laotian and Cambodian borders, dodging mountains in the dark and avoiding anti-aircraft fire.
There were several Mohawk aviation companies throughout Vietnam: the 131st, 73rd, 244th and 225th aviation companies and two ASTA (aerial surveillance and target acquisition) platoons. One ASTA platoon was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division (“The Big Red One”) in the Mekong Delta, and my ASTA platoon was part of the 1st Air Calvary Division. The Cavalry units covered all of I Corps bordering the DMZ (demilitarized zone) and extending to the Laos border. Our platoon consisted of six Mohawk aircraft, four pilots, ten or twelve TOs, six Mohawk crew chiefs, an imagery interpreter and various support troops, totaling a maximum of thirty people.
Come with me in the cockpit and around the compound as we fly missions, live in tents, eat mostly C-rations, watch out for snakes (as well as mosquitos and other things that carry diseases), and do other interesting things, such as hit Marines with boomerangs, avoid Highway 1 Viet Cong (VC) ambushes, pull guard duty on the green line and many other things besides fly. For six months we covered the DMZ out to the border with Laos; during the last six months I served in-country, we covered the Cambodian border and surrounding areas in III Corps when the entire 1st Cavalry Division was moved south. We were assigned to fly out of Vung Tau and told to use the 73rd Aviation Company’s mess hall for food but continued to live separately in our own area; however, this time we lived in wooden and screen-wall hooches with two-man rooms with walls and a door. We even had mama-sans who cleaned our rooms and washed our clothes for fifty cents a week. The rest of the Cavalry was spread out through III Corps and headquartered in Phuoc Vinh in the jungle somewhere near the Cambodian border. The flying to cover target missions in III Corps was very different from I Corps, as the terrain was very flat except for a 3,200-foot mountain called Nui Ba Den that you had to look out for in the dark.
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