The "Fifty" struck fear in the hearts of all helicopter drivers. The slug is large enough to stop a charging elephant, let alone a thin-skinned magnesium, aluminum, titanium, lightly armored UH-1C gunship.

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I fired a couple of pairs of rockets, but I had no idea what effect it had on the target, because before any of them hit, I was breaking right, trying to dodge the fiery golf balls that were flying toward me. Climbing for altitude, I could see that my wingman was going through the same thing. Even though we were pouring door-gun fire on our target area, the .50-cal. gunner was still locked directly onto his target—us. It was obvious that on the first pass, at least, we hadn't eliminated the problem. We had to find a different way to attack him that would not give him another head-on chance at us.

In the target area, an M-113 armored personnel carrier (APC) that had been hit and disabled was burning, giving off a huge amount of smoke that roiled skyward in a thick, black column that could be seen for miles.

Shooting rockets requires selecting an attack axis that fires into the wind in order to maximize the rocket's accuracy and effects. When a 2.75mm aerial rocket is launched, it seeks the relative wind. Shooting into the wind, in trim, is therefore the preferred method. With that in mind, while circling out of range, I got a good look at the long, thick black column of smoke from the APC being blown downwind––and got a wild idea.

I told my wingman to fly to the north and beyond the .50-cal's effective range and tempt the gunner into concentrating on and tracking him, to divert his attention long enough for me to enter the cover of the smoke column. I would then fly down the column, break out near enough so I could be fairly sure that a salvo would hit the target, then run like hell at low level while my wingman suppressed from another direction.

I gave a quick mission brief, wished my wingman Miller good luck and approached the smoke column at 2,000 feet. It wasn't long before Miller called me and reported that he had taken several bursts as he approached the target from the northeast. I feared the gunner sensed what we were up to, but there was no turning back now; it was my turn. I entered the long, black smoke column and came over the top at 2,000 feet. As we came screaming down at 80 knots, I checked trim, centered the bubble on the top of the sight and caught a brief glimpse of the schoolhouse through the smoke.

I put my target indicator, or "pipper," where I thought the target would be when I broke out of the smoke column into the open. As we broke right at 1,200 feet, I was thrilled to find myself squarely facing the cupola in an almost perfect lineup. Fortunately, the .50-cal gunner was not oriented in my direction at that instant––he certainly had the more accurate weapon, and at 1,200 feet he would have eaten my lunch. I fired one, two, then three pairs of rockets in rapid succession and then broke wildly to the right as my co-pilot switched to 40mm and started suppressing the target area. My left door gunner also opened up, and then in an instant we were out of there.

I thought that we had gotten the schoolhouse, but I wasn't sure. Then both radio nets, the FM ground command net as well as my wingman, started chattering wildly about how the building, its cupola and the .50-cal gunner had just disappeared. Still not convinced that we were out of danger, I pulled the guts out of my Huey to put as much distance between me and the .50-cal as quickly as I could.

Once we were several kilometers from the target area, I climbed to 1,500 feet and called Miller. "Good going, boss" was all that I needed to hear from him. He took up his wing position, and as we approached the target we saw that the Aussies had already swarmed over the area and had dustoff choppers inbound to take their wounded out. By the time the medevac was over, it was late afternoon and we broke station to go to Nui Dat to rearm and refuel.

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