Just before 4 a.m. on April 29, the NVA opened a major rocket and artillery barrage on Tan Son Nhut, with some forty rounds falling per hour. Although most of the fire was directed at the VNAF area, one round fell in the DAO complex, killing two marine guards. Helicopter pilot Tony Coalson had been trying to catch some sleep on a lumpy bed in the Air America crew center at the airport when the first rockets landed. He bolted for the bunker that was just outside operations. An eight-by-eight-foot’sandbag contraption,’ it was already jammed with some fifteen people — crying secretaries from the operations office and Filipinos counting rosary beads and praying. It was oppressively hot and uncomfortable. Sand fell on Coalson’s perspiration-soaked shirt as rockets exploded nearby. Anticipating screaming hoards of NVA to come climbing over the airport fence at any minute, Coalson, a Baptist, ‘wished that I had a few rosary beads myself.’

At 5:30 a.m., as the enemy fire continued, chief pilot Carl Winston reported that one rocket had hit amid parked helicopters on the east ramp. The fire was too heavy for him to go out and make a damage assessment. Winston was also concerned about the conduct of helicopter pilot Victor Carpenter, who kept wandering out onto the ramp and acting strangely. He told another pilot to keep an eye on Carpenter. An hour later, Velte called a meeting at Var Green’s apartment in the USAID building, where most of the supervisors and pilots were staying. Although the situation was confusing, Velte decided that the time had come to evacuate Air America’s remaining fixed-wing aircraft. All pilots, fixed and rotary wing alike, were ordered to report to Tan Son Nhut at first light. At dawn, however, with shells still falling, the Vietnamese closed the airport to all but military traffic. An ominous sign of what might lie ahead came at 7 a.m. when a South Vietnamese AC-119 gunship attacking NVA positions near the airport was brought down by a Strella shoulder-fired missile.

Given the situation at Tan Son Nhut, General Smith advised Ambassador Martin shortly after 7 a.m. that fixed-wing evacuations could not continue. Martin, however, refused to accept the judgment of his senior military adviser. There were still ten thousand people to be evacuated. Martin insisted on going to Tan Son Nhut for a personal inspection, but the dangerous trip to the airport did not get underway until 9 a.m.

As Martin dithered, the enemy’s fire on Tan Son Nhut eased, and Air America helicopters were finally able to begin flying. Coalson made the first trip of the day, heading over to the USAID building at 9 a.m. to pick up a load of Air America pilots. The trip nearly ended in disaster. As soon as Coalson landed on the roof, at least nine people climbed on board. With a full load of fuel, he thought that he would not be able to take off vertically from the postage stamp-size pad. He shouted that someone had to get off. But no one responded. This was, Coalson pointed out, ‘the absolutely worst scenario: a full load of pilots — everyone is an expert.’ He asked again for someone to deplane. The response from the group was a rousing ‘It’ll go!’ — ‘Piece of cake!’ One of the pilots, Izzy Freedman, then leaned over the console and assured Coalson that there was ‘no problem.’

The helicopter would barely hover — six to ten inches — at maximum power. But against his better judgment, Coalson backed up as far as he could and attempted a jump takeoff. As he went over the side of the six-story building, his rotor ‘basically almost quit flying.’ The only option was to nose the aircraft over in order to gain airspeed and try and regain engine RPMs. Coalson barely managed to avoid the rooftops below. ‘We almost lost the rotary-wing pilots on the first pickup,’ he recalled.

As other pilots continued to shuttle crews from downtown Saigon to the airport, chief pilot Winston directed Coalson, then with co-pilot Victor Carpenter, to fly over to the DAO tennis courts in order to pick up some passengers for USS Blue Ridge, the command ship of the evacuation force that was standing off the coast. Coalson loaded the people on board, but refused to carry their souvenir ceramic elephants due to weight constraints. Making another marginal takeoff, he headed for the South China Sea. After an uneventful trip, Coalson landed on Blue Ridge’s small helipad, dropped his passengers, and asked for a hot refueling. At that point, Carpenter decided to call it quits for the day and unloaded his equipment. ‘I shut down the helicopter,’ Coalson reported, ‘and explained that nothing had happened yet and he should return to Saigon.’

Carpenter declined and walked off. Coalson’s Filipino flight mechanic then unloaded his tools and announced that he was not going back either. ‘Now that really upset me,’ Coalson noted,’since I had great faith in our Filipino flight mechanics.’ But there was nothing he could do. Coalson refueled, returned to Saigon, and flew solo for the rest of his 10 1/2-hour day.

While Coalson was dealing with his crew’s mutiny, Air America personnel were trying to prevent VNAF pilots from stealing the company’s helicopters at the airport. Shortly before 10 a.m., Frank Andrews, maintenance superintendent for rotary-wing aircraft, came running into Winston’s office and reported that South Vietnamese from across the field were seizing helicopters at gunpoint. Winston instructed his pilots to get to any helicopter they could, take off, find a rooftop, and shut down. Operations manager Al Brau, fixed-wing pilot Ed Adams, and several other employees then armed themselves in an effort to provide some security for the ramp. That stabilized the situation but not before VNAF pilots stole six helicopters, one of which crashed a few minutes after taking off.

Shortly before 11 a.m., Ambassador Martin faced the inevitable and ordered the emergency evacuation of Saigon. He expected Marine Corps helicopters to fill the skies in short order. Unfortunately, confusion within the command structure caused a series of delays. General Carey did not receive orders to execute Frequent Wind until 12:15 p.m. The marine security force then had to be shifted among the ships of the evacuation fleet. As a result, the first twelve twin-engine Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopters did not land at the DAO complex until 3 p.m.

At 11:30 a.m., Velte decided to shift Air America operations to the more secure DAO complex. When he arrived, he learned that the plans for a secure fuel supply for the helicopters were falling apart. Fillipi had arranged for a twelve-thousand-gallon tanker to be parked near the main DAO building. Sometime during the night of April 28-29, however, the fire marshal had ordered the truck moved — but no one knew where. When a ground search of the area failed to turn it up, a helicopter was sent up to locate the vehicle. It was found in a small locked lot near a base exchange building. Maintenance supervisor Boyd Mesecher, who was on the helicopter, landed, broke the padlock, and hot-wired the tanker. But it would not start because the battery was too weak. He returned to the main area in search of a vehicle with a battery large enough to use on the tanker, but had no luck. Returning to the vehicle, he tried to use the battery from a nearby bus, but it was dead. Without the tanker, Air America helicopters would have to refuel on the ships offshore. That meant that they would have only limited operating time in the Saigon area before making the nearly one-hour round trip to the fleet for refueling.

The situation did not look good. Of Air America’s twenty-eight helicopters, six had been stolen by the Vietnamese, one could not be flown due to rocket damage, one was out of service for an engine change, and four were still in Can Tho. And more bad news lay ahead.

Pages: 1 2 3