Thru a Pilot's Eye

Now on tactical frequency I contacted Sandy, “Sandy Two, Saber Red flight of two F-100s forty miles north of Qui Nhon, with four thousand pound bombs each.” Sandy responded, “Roger, Saber, Sandy Two, we have troops in contact.” I was not sure we could be of any help with this bomb load, “Sandy, these thousand pounders are pretty hazardous dropping close to friendlies and I am not sure we have enough altitude to drop below the clouds.” Sandy responded “I am down at five hundred feet; looks like you have about eight hundred overcast and the wind’s out of the northwest at ten knots. Let me talk to the ground commander and see what he wants.” Sandy was gone for a minute and then came back up, “The commander says he could sure use your help, he’s being attacked from the west by a large force. He asked me to give him a call when you’re on your final attack and his guys will get their heads down.” “Troops in contact” were the magic words; no one would leave our guys asses hanging out without trying to help. I had to come up with some type of plan “Saber Red Two, Lead, what do you think about using the napalm ballistic tables for our sight setting. If we go in at five hundred knots and eight hundred feet we should have enough smash to get out of the frag pattern.” The aerodynamic shape of finned nape and bombs was identical. Using the engineer’s idiom, “If you drop a penny and a brick off a ten story building at the same time, which will hit first? Answer: they’ll both hit at the same time.” That premise being correct, the nape ballistic charts would work beautifully. “Sounds like it might work; Two’s right behind you, Lead.” Steve was up for it. “Sandy, we’ll give it a try, what’s your position?” Sandy started to give directions, “OK Saber, do you know where the Bong Son River is?” “That’s affirmative Sandy, Saber can locate that.” Sandy continued, “About eight klicks east of the coast the river forks and a branch heads north toward An Lao. The target is six klicks north of the river fork, half a klick east of the river. The friendlies are thirty meters east of the bad guys. You’re going to have to put your bombs on target.” It would not be hard to find the mouth of the Bong Son. We could penetrate the cloud layer over the water north of the river and then fly south. “Saber Red Two, go three mile trail. We’ll hold three hundred knots to sock through these clouds, fly down the coast to the river mouth, and then fly west down the river. When I get to the north branch, I am going to light the burner and get this thing going as fast as I can. We’ll drop in pairs and make two passes.” “Two copies that.” Sandy was ready with instructions, “Saber, call when you’re at the north branch. I’ll mark the target with willy pete, the friendlies will mark their position with orange smoke. I’ll be holding to the west of the river, so keep your attack to the east of the river.” “Lead copies.” “Two copies.” We were below the clouds heading south when I picked up the mouth of the Bong Son. Turning before I got to the river allowed me to keep sight of it off my left wing, eight hundred feet was as high as we could get without going in the soup. The north branch was in sight; I started a tight right turn as I fire-walled the throttle. Rolling out of the turn I lit the burner and made my call “Sandy, Lead’s inbound, mark the target and get the friendlies head’s down.” “Sandy’s in to the mark.” White smoke appeared just to the east of the river ahead, seconds later an orange plume came up just to the right of Sandy’s mark. God, they looked close.