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Earl Van Inwegen
Excerpt from General Schwartzkopf's
Autobiography, It Doesn't Take A Hero
"The instant his twin-engine C-123 appeared, the enemy opened fire. I didn't think Van Inwegen and his three-man crew would make it. By the time the airplane touched down, it had been shot full of holes and was leaking hydraulic fluid from three or four places. The crew lowered the tail ramp, and Van Inwegen kept the props turning while we loaded the men on stretchers. Meanwhile the airstrip came under mortar attack. More people were hurt, and we threw them on the airplane, too. Van Inwegen sat in the cockpit with his copilot, waiting patiently until I gave the signal. Then he turned the airplane around and took off over the same ridge, getting shot up some more. Even though the plane was seriously damaged, he bypassed Pleiku and took the wounded straight to Saigon, where he knew they'd receive more sophisticated care. His flight was the most heroic act I'd ever seen."
[Ed. note: Name spellings and aircraft type errors in the original text have been corrected.]
Now read the whole story in this excerpt from the book Colt Terry, Green Beret
by Charles D. Patton, published by the Texas A & M Press, 2005.
Chapter 11
Colt's Finest Hour
In August, 1965, Colonel Patch and Colt tried to explain to the commander of an army medevac helicopter unit, Colonel "Trembley," that Special Forces had American and CIDG casualties numbering forty dead and one hundred wounded at Due Co and needed his help. The camp also was running out of ammunition and needed medical supplies. Patch asked Trembley to take in supplies and pick up the wounded.
Colonel Trembley told him that there was no way he was sending his men in there--it would be suicide. He reminded Patch that the NVA had nearly wiped out a South Vietnamese paratrooper company Patch had sent in.
Patch and Colt were furious when they left Trembley's quarters, but they knew he was right; they could not blame him. The NVA had Due Co surrounded with three regiments that were pouring fire in as fast as they could load their weapons. Trembley believed that he would lose at least 60 percent of any helicopters sent in there, and he had flatly refused--with sound reasoning.
They next contacted a combat-operations helicopter unit. But its commanding officer also refused to pick up anyone at Due Co. He said that his gunships would continue to conduct periodic combat sorties against the NVA in that vicinity, but that it was impossible for his choppers to land there--the NVA would "shoot the shit out of them." The American operations combined had already lost five choppers before they even attempted to land in that area.1 Patch and Colt requested help from every known unit in the region, and none of them would risk the potential losses.
Due Co was under constant pressure. NVA soldiers crawled up close to the camp at night and lobbed grenades into the compound. The men inside the perimeter were strained to the breaking point from the nightly attacks and constant shelling. Knowing they were surrounded and nearly out of ammunition and medical supplies intensified their stress.
The next morning the C-team radio operator told Colt that the XO from Due Co, Lt. Sario J. Caravalho, was on the radio and wanted to talk with him.2
Colt went down to the radio shack, picked up the mike, and said, "Go ahead." He heard a tough man in serious straits.
Caravalho's voice, as Colt recalls, was tremulous. "Sir, I don't know who to turn to but you. You're the only one that I know who'll listen."
Trying to calm the lieutenant, Colt responded, "Wait a minute, Tiger, the colonel knows you guys need help."
Caravalho said, "It's worse than that, sir. If you can't get us some ammunition today, we won't be here in another day. It will be knives and hand-to-hand and then that's it."
Colt was angered to think that it might come to that. He said, "Caravalho. I give you my word: I'll find a way to get out there. Tell the men to hang on and I'll be there. And when I get there, I want some support."
The lieutenant replied, "Okay, sir. I knew you'd help us."
Without a word to Colonel Patch, Colt drove a jeep to II Corps Headquarters. Nearly despondent because of the rejections he had already experienced, he asked the air force liaison officer, a stocky lieutenant colonel named "Phillips," for assistance. At first Phillips was cordial, even polite, until Colt told him what he wanted.
"Do I understand you correctly, major? You're asking for an aircraft to fly out to Due Co with supplies and ammunition?" Phillips asked in an agitated voice.
"That's right, colonel," Colt replied.
Colonel Phillips seemed to come unglued and nearly jumped across his big desk -- in his big, comfortable office. "There's no way in hell you're going to get a goddamned airplane from us! I know what's going on out there. I know how Special Forces are getting their asses kicked out there!" he shouted.
Colt responded: "That's true, sir, but there are three NVA regiments surrounding us. That camp wasn't designed or staffed to hold off three infantry regiments. If we don't get some ammunition and medical supplies to our men, they're gonna be killed or taken prisoner. I just talked to the XO a half hour ago. He said they might last one more day."
Phillips just shook his head.
What happened next, Colt thought later, was miraculous. At that moment two air commandos walked through the door. They were reporting to the liaison officer that they had finished their mission and were going to get haircuts and something to eat. Air force captain Earl Van Inwegen, the pilot, was a six-foot-one-inch blond fellow who looked like Charles Atlas, the famous 1950s bodybuilder. Air force captain Gerry Fritz, the copilot, was a small Scots-Irishman with flaming red hair.
With a new audience, Colt tried again to convince Phillips: "I've been to everybody, and no one will help."
"I don't blame 'em--that's a suicide mission," Phillips said,
"What's a suicide mission?" Van Inwegen, as Colt recalls, asked.
"You don't want to know about it," Phillips said, trying to exclude the pilots. But they insisted on knowing about it.
A large map lay on the big conference table in the middle of the office. Colt grabbed the map and turned it around to show the air commandos where the camp was located, right along the Cambodian border. He described how the NVA had surrounded them. He continued: "Forty men are dead, and a hundred wounded. Americans, Montagnards, and ARVN [Army of the Republic of Vietnam] paratroopers need evacuation, and there's a decent runway out there. I'm tryin' to get someone to fly out there with ammunition and medical supplies."
When the pilots asked how much weight he was talking about, Colt simply said, "As much as you could haul."
The pilots looked like they were thinking about it when Phillips jumped up and yelled, "There's no way in hell you're gonna fly anything or anyone out there."
The two must have known the colonel well because they just let him rant and rave and waited patiently until he was done. Then they told him that they could do it, no problem.
Colt went for the close. "I'll get the plane loaded. Just tell me where it's parked and the tail number."
Van Inwegen put on the brakes. "Slow down," he said. "We'll fly your mission, major, on one condition."
Colt did not hesitate. "Name it!"
"We'll go, if you go with us," Van Inwegen said,
Colt knew it was dangerous, but he did not hesitate to agree. "You've got it. I'll be there." Van Inwegen gave him the tail number, and the major was out the door and down the stairs in seconds. Breaking a land-speed record, at least for a jeep, Colt returned to camp. He found the supply sergeant and told him what he needed. "Get that aircraft loaded, right to the ceiling, with ammo and supplies," he ordered. Colt had no time to get back to headquarters and tell Colonel Patch about the flight. While he was talking to the sergeant, Capt. Alan T. "Tom" Cramer, one of the two C-team surgeons, was standing nearby and overheard him.
"You're gonna need a doctor out there," Cramer said.
"You could get killed on this trip, Doc." Colt warned.
"Well, just to remind you, I joined Special Forces to do this job," the doctor argued.
"Okay, Doc, go help pick out the medical supplies," Colt replied.
Captain Cramer had been in country for only about a month. While the sergeant and his men got everything to the aircraft, Colt retrieved his pistol belt and canteen, loaded up on ammunition for his Uzi, grabbed a sandwich, and headed for the airfield. When the supplies arrived, the plane's loadmaster, Airman 1st Class Ray Satterfield, and the crew chief, M.Sgt. Robert Taylor, did a speedy job of getting everything onboard.3
As the plane taxied down the runway, the pilots quizzed Colt on how to find Due Co. He stood between Van Inwegen and Fritz in the cockpit and gave them directions. Taylor sat on a rack of electronic gear in the pilots' compartment. In the rear of the C-123, Cramer sat in the only seat, by the right door across from Satterfield, who sat on the floor.
Colt had been to Due Co so many times that he could have found it blindfolded. He told the pilots to follow the dirt road due west out of Pleiku as though they were driving to Cambodia. A dirt runway ran right past the front of the camp. Van Inwegen mentioned that he assumed Special Forces had control of the runway.
"Of course, they do," Colt snapped back, even though he did not know for sure.
He radioed the camp to tell the men that he was coming in with a loaded C-123 and to lay down supporting fire. Also, they should have ammunition bearers ready because the aircraft had to be unloaded quickly. He emphasized that the wounded had to be ready to be loaded as soon as the ammo and supplies were off the plane. The dead would have to be retrieved later.
As the plane came in low over the camp, Van Inwegen started to circle. Colt grabbed his shoulder and told him not to circle-- the enemy would know that they were going to land and have more time to shoot at them. NVA gunners had shot down other aircraft that had approached the camp. A wrecked helicopter sat next to the runway. "Just fly straight in," Colt advised.
Van Inwegen dropped the wheels, and the plane drifted onto the runway. The NVA had a two-man .50-caliber antiaircraft gun on a tripod hidden in the high grass at the end of the landing strip. It immediately opened up on the C-123. The incoming fire sounded like someone throwing rocks against the side of a tin building. A bullet screamed through the cockpit, right past Colt's nose, and missed Van Inwegen's head by inches. It slammed into the radio equipment on the wall behind Fritz, just a few inches from the crew chiefs head. Colt was still standing up next to Fritz.
The plane rocked and rolled as a rain of bullets scored many hits. In the rear, sitting amid the ammunition, Cramer and Satterfield each had their head between their knees to avoid being struck. After the C-123 landed, Van Inwegen taxied to where the camp gate was and turned the aircraft into position to take off immediately after exchanging cargoes. As the plane pulled up to the gate, the ammunition bearers, with their security laying down protective fire, swarmed from the camp. Van Inwegen left Fritz at the controls to keep the props turning and helped Colt, the crew chief, and the loadmaster pass the ammunition and supplies to the bearers.
Colt handed a case of ammunition to a little South Vietnamese paratrooper, who walked no more than twenty feet from the plane before a mortar round hit him squarely in the back, splattering him all over the runway. Machine gunners at the end of the strip were still hosing down the plane with a wash of bullets. The C-123, as tall as a two-story building, looked like the Empire State Building sitting on that runway. Fritz kept the engines running while trying to duck bullets. The doctor, meanwhile, had taken cover in a ditch alongside the runway to keep out of the way while he waited for the wounded to be brought down.
As soon as all of the ammunition was unloaded, Colt yelled, "Load the wounded. Don't worry about strapping 'em down--just drag 'em in and leave 'em on the floor any way they fit. That machine gun will shoot this plane to pieces if we don't get it off the ground soon."
If a mortar round hit the plane, they all knew that it would be gone and them with it. Cramer had abandoned the relative safety of his drainage ditch and was back aboard helping the wounded. When the forty most critically injured had been loaded, Colt left the cargo hold, ran to the front of the plane, and yelled up to the side window, which was open.
"Fritz," he yelled, "rev it up and get the fuck outta here!"
"I'm waiting for Captain Van," he yelled back.
"He's on. Go! Now! In another minute, ya won't be able to. You've got a flat front tire already."
"What about that gun at the end of the runway?" Fritz asked.
Colt looked down the runway. "Don't worry about it--I'll take care of it right now!"
He pulled back the slide on his Uzi and started running down the runway toward the enemy machine gun. Cramer, Satterfield, Taylor, and Van Inwegen had all the critically wounded loaded. The plane was already rolling as Colt came within range of the enemy gunners. As he sprinted toward the antiaircraft gun, two NVA soldiers, who were security for the .50-caliber, jumped out of the grass at the side of the runway. A burst from Colt's Uzi dropped them both, and he kept running, not stopping to check if they were dead.
At the end of the dirt strip, Colt opened up on the NVA soldiers behind the antiaircraft gun as he ran toward them screaming, just like he learned to do in Ranger school. The gunners were so focused on shooting at the huge aircraft that they never saw him until he was right on top of them, hurling profanities at them. They pushed the machine gun over and ran into the jungle. He heard one of them yelling in Vietnamese, "That man is crazy." Colt probably was crazy at this point; all he wanted was for the brave air commando crew to get home safely and for the wounded to have their best chance at recovery.
Kicking up a cloud of dust, the plane lifted off right over Colt's head. At this moment Colt realized that he was out of ammunition, saying to himself, "You stupid son of a bitch. You'd better get your ass out of here." He waved at the aircraft and crew as he ran back toward the camp gate. The antiaircraft gun had hit the plane in some vital places. He could see hydraulic fluid pouring out as it passed overhead, but it could have been worse. The huge C-123 had sat on the runway for an eternity--about fifteen minutes--while the enemy lobbed mortar rounds and gunfire at it.
Cramer began operating on the wounded while they were still in flight. The plane was diverted to Saigon. When the pilots tried to put the wheels down, they would not drop into position. The runway was foamed, and the plane made an emergency wheels-up belly landing. No one was hurt, and all forty wounded men were saved thanks to Cramer and the brave air commandos who flew them out of Due Co.4
While the C-123 was on the ground at Duc Cothe men inside the camp had fired a 4.2 mortar, with a four-thousand-yard range, so often as suppression fire that it turned red hot and they ran out of ammunition. When Colt got inside the gates, he found the mortar pointed into the camp. He figured that the men had probably done this to use the last rounds to blow the camp apart had they been overrun. Colt ordered Lieutenant Caravalho, "Turn the damned four-duce around and start dropping everything you have on the surrounding enemy, day and night, until you run those bastards out of the jungle."
He did just that. After two days of fighting against the resupplied Americans, the NVA units had had a bellyful. With the combined effort of the men at Due Co, U.S. Air Force bombers, and the South Vietnamese II Corps task force fighting its way into the village, the NVA withdrew.
A couple of days later, a chopper was able to land and pick up Colt. When he returned to Pleiku, Colonel Patch asked the major where he had been, knowing full well where he had been. Colt joked, "Trying to get myself killed, sir." Patch was astounded when he heard the details of the trip to Due Co. Colt gave credit for the rescue to the air commandos.
Within a few days, Dr. Cramer recommended Colt for the Silver Star, but for unknown reasons it was never processed, and the only reward he ever received for this action was the thanks of the men who were at Due Co. Without question, because of Colt's determination and the bravery of those who joined him, more than five hundred men were saved. Cramer was awarded a Bronze Star, and Van Inwegen, Fritz, Satterfield, and Taylor all received the Distinguished Flying Cross. This group of just five men (including Colt) disregarded their own safety and risked their lives to save forty wounded plus the lives of the camp's defenders, denying the enemy the capture of a key Special Forces position and a victory that they badly needed at that point in the war.
Such valor on the part of all five men was of a level that probably deserved the highest recognition of our country, the Medal of Honor, had witnesses been able to see all that happened that day. Even Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, in his autobiography, calls this flight "the most heroic act I'd ever seen." Yet for these men and others like them, they were simply doing their duty and what they were trained to do.5 Afterward, Colt went on leave to Saigon. It was September, 1965.
Notes:
1. Number of helicopters lost is based on Colt's recollections.
2. Based on Colt's recollection, Lieutenant Caravalho had been an NCO on an A-team during his first tour to Vietnam. After that tour, he earned his commission at Officer Candidate School and returned to Vietnam as a Special Forces officer.
3. This Robert Taylor is no relation to Robert E. Taylor, mentioned earlier in Colt's career.
4. Air force captain Earl Van Inwegen provided his recollections of the events in Due Co in an undated two-page document sent to Colt Terry in 2002. In it he confirms that he, Maj. Gerry Fritz, S.Sgt. Robert Taylor (flight engineer), and Airman First Class Ray Satterfield made the flight, landed on a foamed runway at the Tan Son Nhut Base near Saigon, and all received the Distinguished Flying Cross and a Letter of Commendation from the Vietnamese Defense Ministry.
5. Sario J. Caravalho, who served in Vietnam in 1964-65, 1967-68, and 1972-73, remembers Colt and is still in contact with him from time to time. They were in many situations together, and Caravalho knew that he could always count on Colt. Caravalho is a third-generation Puerto Rican born and raised in Hawaii. He trained with Colt in Key West. He confirmed that he was in Due Co and called Colt for help. Caravalho also verified the substance of the Due Co story, including the C-123 and the .5O-caliber machine gun at the end of the runway, and said that Schwarzkopf was in the camp before the attack but not during it. Sario Caravalho, telephone interview with the author, Mar. 3, 2002.