Combat Reflections of a USAF FAC in the Vietnam War.

Part I

Although the Cessna Bird Dog (L-19/O-1) saw its first combat in Korea, the aircraft's most significant contributions came during the Vietnam War. Bird Dogs were widely used by the US Air Force early in the war and flown by other services and the VNAF, as well. When I arrived for a combat tour in Southeast Asia in January 1967, the Air Force had four squadrons of Bird Dogs in Vietnam and a squadron at Nakhon Phanom (NKP) in northeast Thailand. USAF Bird Dog pilots were called FACs (pronounced like facts without the t), which was short for Forward Air Controllers. Our primary jobs were flying daily visual reconnaissance and directing airstrikes. Even though we couldn't get anywhere very fast, we were usually in the middle of the action. This was because we either initiated the action by finding a target worth striking, or we were loitering nearby when someone got into trouble. FACs in their Bird Dogs were men readily drawn to the sound of cannon," or in our cases, to gunfire reported over the radios. Whenever troops got ambushed or a plane went down, the quick arrival of a Bird Dog often meant the difference between life and death. Charlie understood that as well and often started breaking off contact when a Bird Dog appeared.

Although we carried white phosphorous rockets to mark targets for other fixed-wing aircraft or helicopter gunships, the Bird Dog was considered an unarmed aircraft. FACs normally carried personal sidearms and M-16s for protection if shot down. When friendly lives were in danger on the ground, FACs improvised, including firing their M-16s out the windows. On 24 February 1967, USAF Captain Hilliard A. Wilbanks was killed in a Bird Dog on such a mission about a hundred miles northeast of Saigon. His treetop level passes firing his M-16 disrupted the attack of a superior force of VC and earned the Medal of Honor.

The Bird Dog's primary nav-aid was an ADF that could be counted on to point to the closest thunderstorm. So, most FACs became expert map readers. With 1:50,000-scale maps, we could identify coordinates within about 100 meters. My roommate, Chic Randow, even flew Bird Dogs on night missions over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. If the weather was decent, FACs could usually count on flashes of ground fire to help locate the Trail. The problem was finding your way back to NKP in Thailand through about 60 to 100 nautical miles of darkness with few lights to help identify where you were.

The monsoons of Southeast Asia offered special challenges for pilots in a bird that was basically designed for daylight/VFR operations. Thunderstorms, combined with slick metal runways made up of perforated steel planking (PSP), could be hazardous to a FAC's health. One day in April 1967, thunderstorms at NKP forced us to take two Bird Dogs south to find a grass strip at a radar site at Mukdahan. We flew the last fifty miles, or so, under a 200-300 foot ceiling with about a quarter mile visibility in moderate-to-heavy rain.

Those are the kinds of flights one recalls quite vividly even after 30 years.

By the time I arrived at NKP in early 1967, the days of the Air Force's heavy reliance on the Bird Dog were numbered. Attritiondue to combat losses and the hazards of operating at forward airstripswas taking its toll. We were simply running out of Bird Dogs. In the five weeks before I joined the 23rd Tactical Air Support Squadron at NKP, three of our Bird Dogs had been shot down over the Ho Chi Minh Trail and two more had crash landed back at the base. That was out of a normal inventory of between 20 and 25 Bird Dogs. Cessna O-2s (military version of the Cessna 337 Skymaster) were already on order and began arriving in-country by mid-1967.

Even after the USAF switched primarily to O-2s and the North American OV-10 Broncos as the primary FAC aircraft, Bird Dogs continued to serve in Vietnam. Some of you probably saw pictures of overloaded VNAF O-1s landing on US Navy carriers in the final days before Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1975. The Bird Dog established a reputation as a rugged, dependable aircraft that saved a great many lives at the cost of a number of Bird Dogs and pilots.

So, if you have a Vietnam-era Bird Dog, be proud of the heritage that your aircraft represents.

Jimmie H. Butler, Colonel, USAF, Retired, recently published A Certain Brotherhood, a novel about American Forward Air Controllers in combat over the Ho Chi Minh Trail during the Vietnam War. The novel has drawn a great deal of praise, especially from combat veterans who served in Southeast Asia.

He flew 240 missions as a Nail FAC in small, unarmed Cessna O-1s and O-2s in the Vietnam War. His combat decorations include the Silver Star, the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the Air Medal with sixteen oak leaf clusters. While at the Air War College, he wrote a book-length report, Crickets on a Steel Tiger: The Interdiction of the Ho Chi Minh Trail 1966-1968. It earned the Air Force Historical Foundation's 1980 Award for the best aerospace report of major historical interest.

After retiring from active duty, he published two highly successful technothrillers. His first novel, The Iskra Incident, earned the 1991 Award of Excellence for Aviation Fiction from the Aviation/Space Writers Association. Red LightningBlack Thunder, a thriller involving space warfare, was crafted from his experience as Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force Space Division and as a pilot on worldwide missions in C-141 jet transports. A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy Class of 1963, he resides in Colorado Springs.

part 2   part 3