last battle of Vietnam, The

Flight Journal, Apr 2000 by Hunter, Ric

May 12, 2000 will mark 25 years since Khmer Rouge Communists highjacked the U.S. flagged container ship SS Mayaguez off the coasts of South Vietnam and Cambodia. After the fall of Saigon two weeks earlier, the Khmer hierarchy felt the U.S. was weakened and that one of its ships would be an easy target. President Gerald Ford quickly responded by sending in U.S. forces--predominantly airpower. The crew of the Mayaguez was returned to the U.S. side three days later, but at a heavy cost. May 12, 2000 will mark 25 years since Rouge Communists hijacked the U.S.-flagged container ship SS Mayaguez off the coasts of South Vietnam and Cambodia. After the fall of Saigon two weeks earlier, the Khmer hierarchy felt the U.S. was weakened and that one of its ships would be an easy target. President Gerald Ford quickly responded by sending in U.S. forces-predominantly airpower. The crew of the Mayaguez was returned to the U.S. side three days later, but at a heavy cost.

The scene was surreal. The sun dipped in the west and now cast a peaceful, red-orange glow behind tracers that had crisscrossed the sky and the corridors of fire that had swept the darkening jungle. A din of whirling rotor blades, automatic-weapons fire and exploding mortar and cannon rounds drowned out even the loudest commands. The air reeked of spent gunpowder, jet exhaust and salt spray.

As Air Force para-rescuemen pulled wounded Marines aboard their CH-53, the crew spewed M-16 rifle fire at Khmer forces. From defensive positions on the beach around the big chopper, the remaining Marines returned fire through a pall of smoke. A "Nail" forward air controller (FAC) buzzed overhead in an OV-IOA Bronco, rolled in on enemy gun positions and unleashed white-hot, "willy pete" 2.75-inch rockets. Higher, a circling AC-130A Spectre gunship pounded enemy positions with a continuous barrage of 20- and 40mm cannon fire.

First Lt. Richard C. Brims' CH-53-designated Knife 51ripped a minigun fury along the tree-lined beach of the western landing zone (LZ). Brims was not helping to cover a retreat; this was an "extraction" from Koh Tang, a desolate atoll off the southern coasts of Vietnam and Cambodia.

At the same time as 27 Marines fought their way aboard Knife 51, Air Force Technical Sgt. Wayne Fisk ignored intense hostile fire and ran, half-crouching, across the beach to the tree line. His mission was to make sure that no one was left behind. He spotted two young Marines laying down suppressive fireunaware the helo was about to depart. The three sprinted for the CH-53 and clambered up the ramp as it lifted off. Eventually, 29 Marines were extracted from the last firefight of the last battle of the bitter Vietnam War. Behind Knife 51, a Khmer encampment burned like an unearthly bonfire; it had been leveled and set ablaze by 152 willy pete rockets from "Bucktail," a flight of four F-4D Phantoms. Flames from the burning hooches served as a navigation beacon for the three remaining helos. There had been 11 when the savage day began.

Soon, a deathly silence fell over Koh Tang. Fourteen hours of intense, high-tempo combat were over. The western LZ was dark except for the eerie wink of a strobe light abandoned on the beach. All that had been the crucible of the Vietnam War was over-if not forgotten.

This is the story of Koh Tang as told from a fighter pilot's personal experience, as well as from declassified documents and photographs. Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese on April 29, 1975, and for the next two weeks, U.S. morale was in the trash can. I was among the Air Force F-41D Phantom pilots based at Korat Royal Thai Air Force Base, Thailand. As U.S. participation waned in Southeast Asia, it was clear America was on the run. It had evacuated Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and then Saigon, South Vietnam. We wondered whether Thailand's capital, Bangkok, would be next. The situation looked exceedingly bleak.

At 2:20 p.m. local time on Monday, May 12, 1975, a Khmer Rouge Communist gunboat changed the course of U.S. influence in Southeast Asia for decades to come. When one of its machine gunners triggered those first few rounds across the bow of the container ship, SS Mayaguez, he unleashed a maelstrom. The Khmer radicals seemed to have forgotten their own Asian proverb, "One should not anger a sleeping tiger."

On a small, remote base like Korat, rumors travel at warp speed. On the evening of May 12, at the squadron dinner table, we heard that an American ship might have been hijacked in the Gulf of Thailand, 300 miles to the south. Already on edge, we reacted bitterly. Were we about to taste yet another defeat in Southeast Asia? Would this be another Pueblo incident? That specter both energized us and made us as mad as hell.

It was long after duty hours, but nearly an entire squadron of pilots and weapons-system operators trickled into the operations building. We learned the Khmer Rouge had indeed hijacked an American ship in international waters eight nautical miles from Poulo Wai--an atoll claimed by the Khmer Communists and the provisional revolutionary government of South Vietnam. Through diplomatic channels, President Ford demanded its return. If a game was to be played, we wanted in; my group was the nearest airborne firepower.