51Cal Basketballs - Feb 1969
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In late February 1969, I was flying front seat in a Cobra with Bill (Bones) Dawson as part of a light fire team scrambled to support Fire Support Base (FSB) Diamond, which the powers-that-be had cleverly built next to a village located near the Angel’s Wing – an area that bordered Cambodia.
There was a major night attack on the FSB and it was sort of an all hands on deck response. When we arrived in the area around midnight on a moonless night (i.e., it was really, really dark), we were told to hold south of the FSB to allow the Air Force fast movers to complete their bombing runs. We were holding in a mile wide circle with the fire team leader about 180 degrees out from us in the circle. I think we were probably at about 2,500 feet altitude.
Shortly after we started holding, an NVA 51 Cal antiaircraft position opened up on the team leader – who was probably about a mile across our circular holding pattern. The NVA used to set up their Anti Aircraft positions in a triangle of three 51’s and try to draw you in by firing one gun at an aircraft and then when another aircraft responded, one of the other 51s would fire on the second target. When the first 51 opened up on the team lead, I responded with minigun fire. For those of us that have experienced seeing a minigun fire at night, it is a pretty amazing thing. The minigun has a very bright flash of white light coming from the barrels that is about 10-12 feet long and leads to a trail of bright red tracers heading for their target. From the ground perspective (of the 51 cal gunner), that creates a nice red line of tracers leading to a bright glow of light, behind which is an enemy aircraft (us!!!).
So, with me providing a really nice target acquisition profile, a second 51 cal opened up on us – and boy did he have us dead to rights. We had what appeared to be a stream of greenish-white basketballs (51 cal tracers) coming at our aircraft. I quit firing the minigun and Bones turned the aircraft to engage the 51 with rockets. He also managed to turn off our lights to present a less identifiable target.
To me in the front seat, as Bones completed his entry into a dive toward the 51, the “basketballs” were coming straight at us and going up both sides of the aircraft. We felt a couple of hits on the aircraft, but everything was still working. Bones completed his diving fire, expending our entire load of rockets on the 51 cal position.
Out of bullets and rockets, and pretty much scared witless, we decided that we needed to go back to Cu Chi and check the aircraft out and rearm. We got to the rearm point and I hopped out of the front seat to inspect the damage while Bones completed the aircraft shutdown.
As can be seen in the photos, the 51 cal gunner was very good. One round hit our left rear skid cross-tube about twelve inches from the fuselage. My recollection of the “basketballs” going by seems to be that most of them went up the right side of the fuselage, so this one was pretty close. Twelve inches over and it probably would have gone through my left foot.
Needless to say, we weren’t done for the night. We took that Cobra back to the Corral and got a new one, joined back up with our team leader and headed back out to FSB Diamond. I suspect that we flew at a higher altitude and avoided the area south of the FSB on subsequent trips that night.